We’re at a university theatre department awards ceremony that’s hosted by the students. They are SERIOUSLY DECKED OUT. Student uniforms: Sleek little cocktail dresses and sky-high heels for the young ladies. Savvy suits, sportjackets with a hip Miami Vice retro edge for the gents. Professor uniforms: General forgettable professorial frumpage, including us—everyone save the costume design professor, who looks fab and sparkly.
In my defense, the Miami Vice thang fools me into thinking I am back in the 80s. It’s an era I would not wish to relive, not even for several billion dollars and a healthy dollop of world peace, but it’s a place where I can get around without a map.
One of David’s students, a most affable fellow—M.—volunteers his services as one of the designated drivers for the awards afterparty. I am charmed and impressed. I always tried to look out the window or tie my Birkenstocks whenever the subject of volunteering to be a designated driver came up at college.
When M. comes over to bid us hello and goodbye, I smile broadly and say—start your walkers, GenXers!—”Lloyd Dobler! That’s who you are!”
[insert long but polite pause]
I press on, thinking the volume level in the room is to blame, not my geezerly pop-culture reference.
“LLOYD DOBLER! YOU KNOW!”
[more smiling, some nodding—not too confused, as the guy's polite AND a good actor]
I feel my smile faltering and my entire bottom row of teeth crumbles to dust. Winged GenX tooth fairies zip in and fit me with dentures. “LLOYD DOBLER! YOU KNOW! JOHN CUSACK? SAY ANYTHING?”
Lightbulb! Dusty, faint, low-wattage! But I will take it! “Oh, yeah,” says M. “Right. The guy with the—” He gestures as if holding a boombox over his head, which is EXACTLY WHAT I WANT HIM TO DO.
“YES!” I scream as if I’ve just won my round of GenX Bingo at the rest home. “THAT’S RIGHT!”
I am talking very loudly and very precisely to make sure I am un-der-stood. “LLOYD DOB-LER! YOU’RE THE KEY-MAS-TER! GET IT? DE-SIG-NAY-TED DRI-VER? THE KEY-MAS-TER?”
M. smiles and nods. He is a kind soul. Meanwhile, David pops another cheese cube into his mouth. “Keymaster! The Keymaster. I love Rick Moranis! Rick Moranis! Love him!”
M. looks really eager to head off on his night of carting drunk puking undergraduates around town, suddenly. M. nods again. “Sure. Rick Moranis, right. Was he—”
David is chowing down cheese cubes like there’s no tomorrow, and at the rate we are aging, there may not be. “Absolutely! THE KEYMASTER! Ghostbusters! Who you gonna call?”
“RICK MORANIS?” I yell. “WHAT?” Now we are having a GenX Shared Senility Moment.
“GHOSTBUSTERS!” yells David. We have become completely hard of hearing within the span of three humiliating minutes. We have entered a Cheese Cube Time Warp that sent us hurtling into pop culture dementia. “THE KEYMASTER!”
“NO! LLOYD DOBLER! JOHN CUSACK! HE’S THE KEYMASTER!”
“RICK MORANIS! SIGOURNEY WEAVER! THE KEYMASTER! GHOSTB—”
“RIGHT! BUT! LLOYD DOBLER!”
M. inches away from us, grinning and nodding. He really is a dear chap. He will read this. Hi, M.! You are graceful in the presence of doddering old GenX farts! Bless you, my son! May you live long and prosper and steer clear of the Miami Vice look that D. and B. were sporting!
On the way home, snarfing down a hubcap-sized platter of fruit we stole from the underfed students, I say, “Dear Lord. That’s how old we are. There it is. Right in our faces. Say Anything and Ghostbusters. Terrific. Way to blend in.”
David squints, trying to fight off the onset of a migraine, because OLD PROFESSORS AND THEIR WIVES ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE MIGRAINES. I have made him drive, because I DON’T LIKE TO DRIVE AT NIGHT and I AM AFRAID OF DRIVING ON HIGHWAYS. I reach down to adjust my support hose, then realize I’ve forgotten to wear support hose. But my contacts have shriveled up on my DRIED-OUT EYEBALLS, so I pry them off of my corneas and flick them onto the grapes.
David says, “Man, I mean, come on! Say Anything was like, what? 1981?”
I punch his arm. “Are you nuts? Say Anything came out after Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters was like, totally 1984! Say Anything was 1987 or so. You are SO more out of touch than I am. By like, three years, at least. And RICK MORANIS? RICK MORANIS?”
“Rick Moranis is a genius.”
“John Cusack is more classic than Rick Moranis.”
“No.”
“Yes.” I eat a strawberry and possibly one of my dried-up contacts. “The problem here is that neither one has stood the test of time. More classic is not classic enough. Face it. We are totally over the hill. Done. They laughed because you took your pants off in that wacky professor bit on the video. They apologized to us for slipping out of PG-13 mode. They actually apologized TO. US.”
“We told them you rented Shortbus.”
“Still,” I say. “It was like a one-way mirror. It’s very strange.”
“Mirror.”
“Like the Law and Order police mirrors. We can see them—and us in them—but I don’t think they can see themselves in us. You know what I’m saying?”
“Mm.”
“Maybe the police mirror is a bad metaphor. But I’m aged. I’m entitled to bad metaphors. It’s just…we were them. We still are. Just chubbier and with much less leisure time.”
“Mm.”
I sigh. “They’re all so beautiful. Even if they puke tonight they’ll still be beautiful doing it. Were we that beautiful? Sometimes? Are we now? Does anyone see it but us?”
“You’re ageless. I swear.”
“Here. Pull over and mush up these blueberries and feed them to me lovingly. Then we can hold hands and expire simultaneously in the backseat.”
He keeps driving. Presumably because HE CAN NOT HEAR ME.
Lloyd Dobler, you will not be forgotten. You either, Lili Taylor.
LLOYD 4EVER
JOE LIES
AND THEN
JOE CRIES
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this seriously made me giggle. i am right there with you.
I’m old too but I can’t really see myself so it’s OK. Kind of.
Laughing. Are we really that pathetic, all of us?
It won’t be long until we start attending our college reunions with our husbands in rubber-soled shoes, highwater pants, and v-neck sweaters.
And we’ll be in our sandals with pantyhose, with lipstick on our teeth.
We’ll take too many pictures, laugh too loudly, and be foolishly, not charmingly, drunk.
Shudder.
I’m a 34-year old grad student surrounded by The Future Leaders of America and it is a seriously surreal situation. Last night a few of us were sitting around and a song by Blind Melon from 1992 started playing and one of the little bastards said, “Geez, this is like classic rock.” Before I could start beating him with my shoe, I realized that it had actually been 15 years since they belched that song out. So, I asked him, “You were, what, in third grade when this song was new?”
“Yep”, he replied.
That’s when the beatings commenced.
I love Say Anything! It can’t have come out that long ago, right? It was just… …1989. Almost 20 years ago.
Crap. Save a rocking chair for me.
“You MUST CHILL!”
Have to go with David on this one. Rick Moranis is and always will be the keymaster.
But if it makes you feel better I thought the Law & Order mirror reference was brilliant. I know exactly what you mean. I am officially old now because I caught myself actually using this phrase yesterday: “I can’t believe the music these kids listen to today….” ACK! Save a spot for me at the old folks home!
Oh, I miss Lloyd Dobler.
And I once served Lily Taylor coffee. I was so excited I could barely breathe, but all of my co-workers thought I was nuts, because They Had No Idea Who She Was!
The other night, I don’t why, my boy and I got on a site listing all the top 100 songs from the 1980s and we knew every freaking lyric.
“I want my TWO DOLLARS!”
Llyod Dobler is the best.
A perfect Saturday evening…a John Cusack film festival…”Sure Thing”, “Better Off Dead” wrapped up with “Say Anything”.
And of course all the movies are on VCR tapes!!!!
I work with a twenty-one-year-old that I get along with very well. Except every now and then I’ll make a reference to a movie that played a prominent part in my childhood/teen years and she’ll give me this look like, “What the hell are you talking about?” Makes me feel old. And like I want to weep a bit.
I’ve got to go with Rick Moranis being the keymaster. I actually haven’t seen “Say Anything” but it is kind of on my rader. Seems to be quite an iconic film.
OH! You’re BOTH cute!!!! I knew you were cute from your posted photos, but look! You are both cute! I’d totally be digging hanging with you guys at a party!
When the Interns come, in the summer, I wrap up my collection of pop-culture references and take them out again in the fall. Safer that way.
Stop. I am too young to feel this old, but thank you for taking me back to the basement of A’s house in 1990 and making out with B after he popped a Peter Gabriel cassette into the boom box (which I still think of as a ghetto blaster) and felt inside my shirt while In Your Eyes played softly in the background.
And how about Mystic Pizza?
Count me in with David and Fifi. Rick Moranis is the Key Master.
I’ve never seen Say Anything, either. My favorite John Cusack flick is Grosse Point Blank. He made being an assasin sexy again.
Llyod Dobber is definitely more classic (heh) than Rick Moranis. Rick did all those Lousy Honey, I (fill in verb here) the Kids movies and that killed any chance he had at all of being classic.
btw, I blogged recently about home remodel and I thought of you when I did it. I guess I do blog about it more than once a year. It looks like twice a year.
Oh dear… I guess that makes me old, too. “Say Anything” was the BEST!
I trip out when I meet people who were born in the 80s and even — gasp! — the 90s! Most of the time I still mentally think of myself as a 19-year-old, but when I consider that my neighbor’s cute 17-year-old son was born in 1990 (and I graduated from high school in 1989!), I realize I’m just fooling myself. And I’m sure he thinks I’m just “that lady up the street.” Holy crap!
I Am forever in love with Lloyd Dobler. “Take this pen and write to me…” Classic…….Just like us…..They should give John Cusack an honorable Oscar for that role alone, oh and Grosse Point Blank…..
OK kiddies, you’ll survive. Guess that’s not the point though. You guys are my kids’ age — the 80s were my parenting trial by fire. Good thing is we all survived. I think John Cusack is dishy, and yes, both of my offspring are going through the same life sticker shock you are. I can only giggle sympathetically. Something about the kid that looked under every rock growing up now being a dad. Yesss!!! there is a god.
I’m a 1984 baby, but the 80′s should have been my glory days. I know more about the music and movies of the 80′s than I do about the 90′s and early 2000′s. I totally knew who you were talking about when you said Lloyd Dobbler, and then the movie flashed through my head, boombox scene and “Your Eyes” included. I make my husband watch movies like that and the Breakfast Club all the time. Hee hee. He’s totally 80′s deprived and we even bought Trivial Pursuit Totally 80′s Edition because I thought it was the only way I would ever have a chance at winning that freaking game.
It’s a tie between Rick Moranis and John Cusack… Ghostbusters was one of the 80′s movies my husband actually knows, so that gives it merit in my mind. LOL
-Puts on bifocals -
Damn, I thought everyone knew about Say Anything. That movie should be required viewing for all angst ridden teens today.
And (thanks for the Better Off Dead reference, Rina!) I have been know to shout “I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS” and been given blank looks by those young whippersnappers. Anything with John Cusack is the best.
There is safety in numbers, you know. Whenever my husband and I have an event to go to where there are going to be lots of the “younger set” we always find those people that are our age so we can have our own little clique, remember that word? It’s terribly fun to speak a different language and laugh about things that they don’t have a clue about. They probably don’t even care, but it makes us feel more comfortable.
I may be getting old, but I plan on looking good and laughing the whole way there!
By the way, my favorite movies of the time were Some Kind of Wonderful, Sixteen Candles and Weird Science. Am I a nerd or what?
Right now, this very minute, I am holding up my boom box for YOU.
Hear it?? Come to your window.
Me and Peter Gabriel are waiting out here on the lawn for you.
Lloyd Dobler. (sigh)
(And since we’re quoting: “There’s no food in your food!”)
I had exactly the same experience, with what I’m sure is exactly the same Blind Melon song, as “Sir” above.
These kids today, these kids! I tell you what!
I love this. Seriously. Take comfort in the fact that I’m a 22-year old college student that understood every little reference here. You’re not that old, they’re just that narrow in the pop culture experiences.
Rick Moranis is teh Keymaster. David looks a lot like Rick Moranis. Sigourney Weaver is teh Gatekeeper. Sigourney Weaver was also Lt. Ripley in Alien. The Alien movies had a lot of Breeding and Weeping in them. Thus, by the power of inductive reasoning, Jenn must be a slimy alien with super-bitey teeth.
Cogitate on that fact, if you dare, Breeders.
In fact Bossy is a blogger because of her Husband John Cusack. Because Bossy doesn’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career.
She doesn’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career.
Bossy doesn’t want to do that.
I used to sing all-male a capella (how 80s is that?!?) and was convinced to dotter back to my alma mater for a 20th anniversary show (I was one of the very old guys, at 38). Someone young and hip from the current crop of singers and wearing an – uncensored – “I f*cked your boyfriend” T-shirt was trying to get us old guys arranged on the steps of mossy old Founder’s Hall and paying attention to the order of things and song lists and whatnot and I felt compelled to ask:
“Can I raise a practical question at this point? Are we gonna do “Stonehenge?”
Blank looks from everyone born after 1980. Three or four long in the tooth nearly 40 somethings feel the stirring of latent memory and convulse with inexplicable laughter.
No one, however, gave the appropriate David St. Hubbin’s rejoinder…
“No, we’re not gonna f*cking do “Stonehenge”!
Tapped out, evidently.
“We can see them—and us in them—but I don’t think they can see themselves in us. You know what I’m saying?â€
I know exactly what you’re saying. It’s a great metaphor! And John Cusack is still so much hotter than any OC actor (or whatever it is those crazy kids are watching these days). Thanks for the laugh.
Rick Moranis is the keymaster, but Llyod/John is more classic, just for different reasons. You guys are so cute! I’m having these moments more and more now since I’ve been teaching college and I’ve got to say I don’t think there’s any other career in the world that can make you feel so “in touch” and “out of touch” at exactly the same time.
I love your metaphor about the one-way mirror. It is so true with them and with my daughter who is teetering on the edge of teendom. SO true!
Plus – Shortbus? What’d you think? My husband and I watched it last week. I really liked it with all of it’s amazing abililty to slide a plot in among all that sex.
How bout this song about Joe to cheer you:
“That’ll never be me, that’ll never be me, that’ll never be, never be me, nooo.” as sung by Lili Taylor to her “Joe” with that skank, “Mimi.”
Yes, my age is showing. I shall tuck it back into my big-girl pants and have a great day. You two. Look for a dare to be different situation.
Why wouldn’t Jenn be Ripley?
I am a “cusper” – aka, born on the cusp of Gen Y, but still technically Gen X. My oldest sister and I hummed the “laaaa, laaa, la la la laaaaa, laaaaa, la laaaa laaaa laaaa” Smurfs theme tune to our baby sister, who is 17. Blank stares.
The worst was when someone made a reference to Vanilla Ice, and she asked if that was a drink from Starbucks.
Ok, for all you who haven’t seen “Say Anything,” please do yourselves a favor and rent it immediately. Better yet, buy it. You’ll like it that much. (If you don’t, there’s something really wrong with you!)
Bossy is hilarious!
Contrary–John Cusack’s character in “Grosse Point Blank” is Lloyd Dobler, 10 years later. Discuss.
Jenn, I went on IMDB.com (you know, on the InterWeb). You were absolutely right–Say Anything was released in 1989, and Ghostbusters was 1984. I knew about Say Anything, because that is the year I graduated from high school, and I still watch that movie every year on the last day of school. (Well, I’m not in school anymore, but I pick a day in the second week of June.)
I have told my children many times, “YOU MUST CHILL!” And, since I have two girls, they will be viewing this movie when they’re old enough, and they will be instructed to find a Lloyd Dobler. (I did!)
Oh, and….”Lloyd, Lloyd, all null and void/ dissed in the Malibu/ didn’t know what to do” “Bitches, man!”
See you at the Gas-N-Sip!
Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. I thought I would be so wise by now. What a farce.
Jenn- Lloyd Dobler is definitely the more classic keymaster. Rick Moranis has nothing on John Cusack!
Bossy- Is John Cusack a bigamist? Because he’s been my husband for, like, 20 years! I actually refer to him as my “other husband” and wonder why people think I’m a little crazy.
Contrary- Martin Blank (Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank) very well could be Lloyd Dobler 10 years later. Interesting that it never occurred to me before.
I’m so old and uncool. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Sigh.
I so totally LOVED Say Anything! Best movie ever! Any college co-ed that doesn’t know that movie is seriously never lived!
Love your police metaphor – I get it!
Keymaster- Ghostbusters.
Rick Moranis singing “close to you” to his wife in her elementary classroom in Parenthood? Equally brilliant.
WAAHHHHHHHHH AH-AH-ah AHHHHH…..
CLose to you.
“In Your Eyes” is STILL my fave song of all time (and the only 80′s song I can bear to listen to anymore, other than – sadly I’ll admit – Tears for Fears which still holds a special place in my heart). That movie gave me a life long crush on John Cusack that is still going strong. Anyone seen “High Fidelity”? If you haven’t, you must! It’s the best semi-recent John Cusack movie, in fact it’s my 2nd fave next to Say Anything (Grosse Point Blank is the 3rd fave). John Cusack rocks. Oh, and he wrote High Fidelity which gives me even more reason to love him.
i, too, adore me the john cusak & his ability to be such a “charm monster” (his term.). however, sandra, & i hope this doesn’t lessen him “in your eyes” (yes, i posted a pun), but “High Fidelity” was a novel first.
& jenn – thanks for the reminder that john is on my “boyfriend” list. jeremy piven, however, is not.
Dear God, I sang Joe Lies with a friend just last week–hopelessly over the hill. Sigh.
Oh yeah…the guy running the rest home? John Mahoney.
You know, I have actually succeeded in not buying, selling, or processing anything…it’s that whole “for a living” part I’m having trouble with. Maybe I should take up kickboxing.
kickboxing IS the sport of the future
Wha? ah? *sigh* — At least David drove you home. My husband would have snuck out the bathroom window.
“I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.”
*sigh* – I was totally in love with lloyd in high school – and I was Gen Y/X cusp too
Can you tell by my name I am a Baby Boomer? – Probably older than all of you combined!
I love Say Anything AND John Cusack. That movie is ALMOST as quotable as When Harry Met Sally, imho. The one that stuck with me the most was “The rain on my car is a baptism” or something like that. Lloyd Dobler rules! I’m breaking out my vhs of Say Anything for a great Saturday night flick!
Well, looks like everyone beat me to the most excellent Say Anything references, but whatev! LOVE “Joe Lies”! And gosh, how the casting was Six Degrees of Kelsey Grammer, what with Frasier’s dad and Lilith.
Sandra – love “High Fidelity” almost as much. That scene…with the mixed tape…Katrina and the Waves – hyuk!
Greenman Tim – you make me wanna watch Spinal Tap again. “You can’t dust vomit…”
I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don’t want to do that.
That’s why I’m a blogger
“Dude! You must chill! I have hidden your Firebird keys”. John Cusack is THE KEYMASTER!
One of the all-time best flicks ever. What girl didn’t fantasize about a guy sleeping on her lawn and holding up a boombox (that probably took, like, 10 size D batteries to operate it was so big) just to get her attention? I did. Still do.
The 80′s – man, that was MY decade. Proud ’88 graduate. Newsflash to all the current youngin’s – McDreamy? Total DORK in 80′s movies. (now, who can name that movie??)
Uh, isn’t it
Joe lies
WHEN he cries…