Top 10 Movies

As I lay there sipping on a couple Buds on a quiet Thursday night, Brett Farvara was laid out and taken out of the game to end all games, (I rejoiced). I caught an all time favorite movie on VH-1. Since showing music would make sense, they show movies about music, do the math.

High Fidelity is the flick. Based on a Nick Horby book, which I will track down at dawn, it is a masterpiece of the musically frustrated thirty-something bored with today's crap and missing yesterday's crap on the shelves. In a nutshell, it examines the self absorbed life a record (that is vinyl) store owner and his attempt to win back his true love. My sister immediately thought of me when she saw this classic, the music part I hope.

The script is razor sharp and worth the price of admission. Yes I am a music snob, hence my placing a part in bold.

Barry: We're no longer called Sonic Death Monkey. We're on the verge of becoming Kathleen Turner Overdrive, but just for tonight, we are Barry Jive and his Uptown Five.

Rob: Liking both Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel is like supporting both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Laura: No, it's really not, Rob. You know why? Because Marvin Gaye and Art Garfunkel make pop records.

Rob: Made. Made. Marvin Gaye is dead. His father shot him.

Barry: Rob, I'm telling you this for your own good, that's the worst fuckin' sweater I've ever seen, that's a Cosby sweater. [Imitating Cosby] Barry: A Cosssssssby sweater. Did Laura let you leave the house like that?

Rob: I can't fire them. I hired these guys for three days a week and they just started showing up every day. That was four years ago.

Barry: Rob, top five musical crimes perpetuated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s. Go. Sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?

Barry's Customer: Hi, do you have the song "I Just Called To Say I Love You?" It's for my daughter's birthday.

Barry: Yea we have it.

Barry's Customer: Great, Great, can I have it?

Barry: No, no, you can't.

Barry's Customer: Why not?

Barry: Well, it's sentimental tacky crap. Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called to Say I Love You? Go to the mall.

Customer: I don't have that record... I'll buy it for forty.

Rob: Sold. Customer: Now why would you sell it to me and not to him?

Barry: Because you're not a geek, Louis. Customer: You guys are snobs.

Dick: No, we're not. Customer: Yeah, seriously, you're totally elitist. You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you shit onto people who know lesser than you.

Rob, Barry, Dick: No!

Customer: Which is everybody...

Rob, Barry, Dick: Yeah...

Customer: That's a bit sad.

Barry: Let 'em riot. We're Sonic-fuckin'-Death Monkey.

Rob: The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules. Anyway... I've started to make a tape... in my head... for Laura. Full of stuff she likes. Full of stuff that make her happy. For the first time I can sort of see how that is done.

Rob: Jon Dillinger was killed behind that theater in a hale of FBI gunfire. And do you know who tipped them off? His fucking girlfriend. All he wanted to do was go to the movies.

Rob: I was jealous of other men in her design department. I became convinced that she was going to leave me for one of them. Then she left me for one of them.

Dick: Marie de Salle's playing. You remember I told you about her. I like her. She's kind of Sheryl Crow-ish crossed with a post-Partridge Family pre-L.A. Law Susan Dey kind of thing, but, you know, uh, black.

Rob: Top five things I miss about Laura. One; sense of humor. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she's got one of the best all time laughs in the history of all time laughs, she laughs with her entire body. Two; she's got character. Or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She's loyal and honest, and she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character. [holds up three fingers]

Rob: Three; [long pause, hesitantly]

Rob: I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home. [shakes his head, recollecting, then looks back and lip synchs 'four' while holds up four fingers]

Rob: I really dig how she walks around. It's like she doesn't care how she looks or what she projects and it's not that she doesn't care it's just, she's not affected I guess, and that gives her grace. And five; she does this thing in bed when she can't get to sleep, she kinda half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times... it just kills me. Believe me, I mean, I could do a top five things about her that drive me crazy but it's just your garden variety women you know, schizo stuff and that's the kind of thing that got me here.

Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological? Rob: No...

Dick: Not alphabetical...

Rob: Nope...

Dick: What?

Rob: Autobiographical.

Dick: No fucking way.

Rob: I get by because of the people who make a special effort to shop here - mostly young men - who spend all their time looking for deleted Smith singles and original, not rereleased - underlined - Frank Zappa albums. Fetish properties are not unlike porn. I'd feel guilty taking their money, if I wasn't... well... kinda one of them.

Rob: Songs at my funeral: "Many Rivers to Cross" by Jimmy Cliff, "Angel" by Aretha Franklin, and I've always had this fantasy that some beautiful, tearful woman would insist on "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" by Gladys Knight. But who would that woman be?