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effenheimer

No one needs to eat all the pasta they can eat

by effenheimer at 03:49 PM on April 28, 2003

The boys are back in town this weekend. The quasi-annual meeting of the geeks is in full swing so my best advice to all the peasants out there is lock up your daughters (and your sons in at least one case), hide the Mountain Dew, nail crooked boards over your doors and windows, look both ways before crossing the street and, if at all possible, DON’T PET STRANGE DOGS.

Yeah, I tell you, when it comes to the pinnacle of nerdishness, nothing beats a roomful of men screaming toward middle age acting like 14-year-olds, rolling multi-side dice and calling each other by their “character names.”

Until they they start doing it in public.

So Thursday, Steve, The Big King Geek (”that than which no greater geek can possibly exist,” according to St. Anselm) rolls into town from North Carolina at 11:30 a.m. Every time Steve comes into town, his first stop for lunch HAS to be Spaghetti Works – an all-u-can-eat spaghetti place – because “we don’t have anything like this in North Carolina.”

This is what Steve tells us and the waiter and anyone else who will listen.

“Can we get another basket of bread?” Steve asks the waiter.

“Yeah, they don’t have bread in North Carolina either,” I said.

“Shut up,” said Steve, brandishing his fork like a feral child, the last crust of garlic bread dangling from bloody fangs.

“Hey, Steve, you want to recreate the Spaghetti Works experience at home? MAKE SOME SPAGHETTI!” I suggested.

“I don’t cook,” demured Steve.

“You can boil water, can’t you? Boil water, insert spaghetti, remove water, insert sauce, shove in your gut,” I said. “What could be simpler. Nothing, Steve. Nothing could be simpler.”

“But,” said Steve, his lip beginning to quiver.

“AND if you want to have the complete Spaghetti Works experience, just sit on the toilet for an hour while your wife kicks you in the stomach over and over again until you shit blood,” I said.

It was at this point that Steve snapped. He grabbed his glass of Mr. Pibb and broke it on the edge of the table. Ice cubes, brown sugar water and shards of glass flew leaving Steve holding the deadliest weapon he had wielded since his wedding night.

“You wanna dance, Hans?” he asked, calling me by my character name of nearly 20 years ago. “Let’s dance!”

“Bring it on, cholo,” I shouted as I picked up the parmasean, the only blunt object at hand.

A crowd of Nebraska fans gathered in shock and awe at seeing two Iowa Titans going into battle before their eyes. “Protect the children they screamed” for all the good it would do them that day.

Just as I was about to receive my first blow from Steve, David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance!” came over the jukebox and we just fell about laughing.

“I love you, man,” said Steve, tears in his eyes.

“Calm down, Stephanie,” I said putting up the emotional defenses that keep me from satisfying adult relationships.

Mike and Brian who sat through the entire episode oddly passive and now seemed disappointed. They were undoubtedly expecting a big haul. When geeks fight, the ground around them is littered with coins. I once made $47 collecting coins after two of these Urkels went at it because one of their characters died in a game.

We finished our lunch talking about how “Top Gun” is the greatest subversive, homo-erotic film ever made by a major studio (it’s Rated-R, so be warned) then Steve tried to sell us all computers so he could pay for lunch with company plastic ... and I cried.

comments (7)

in case you dont want to look for it, here is the quentin tarantino monologue about Top Gun i was talking about. Just read it really fast like a cokehead and you will get the proper effect. it is quentin and some other guy at a party talking about movies and that's all you need to know. it is ver funny. after that is a comment from val kilmer.

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Quentin's Monologue from 'Sleep With Me'

Originally written by Roger Avary


What's a film about, what's it really about? What genre does it take?

[Duane: What, like the spine? Like one sentence?]

No, I don't, fucking boy meets girl, I don't give a shit about that. Fuck boy meets girl, fuck motorcycle movie. No, what is really being said? What's really being said, that's what you're talking about. 'Cause the whole idea, man, is subversion. You want subversion on a massive level. You know what one of the greatest fucking scripts ever written in the history of Hollywood is? Top Gun.

[Duane: Oh, come on.]

Top Gun is fucking great. What is Top Gun? You think it's a story about a bunch of fighter pilots. [Duane: It's about a bunch of guys waving their dicks around.] It is a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality. It is! That is what Top Gun is about, man.

You've got Maverick, all right? He's on the edge, man. He's right on the fucking line, all right? And you've got Iceman, and all his crew. They're gay, they represent the gay man, all right? And they're saying, go, go the gay way, go the gay way. He could go both ways.

[Duane: What about Kelly McGillis?]

Kelly McGillis, she's heterosexuality. She's saying: no, no, no, no, no, no, go the normal way, play by the rules, go the normal way. They're saying no, go the gay way, be the gay way, go for the gay way, all right? That is what's going on throughout that whole movie...

He goes to her house, all right? It looks like they're going to have sex, you know, they're just kind of sitting back, he's takin' a shower and everything. They don't have sex. He gets on the motorcycle, drives away. She's like, "What the fuck, what the fuck is going on here?" Next scene, next scene you see her, she's in the elevator, she is dressed like a guy. She's got the cap on, she's got the aviator glasses, she's wearing the same jacket that the Iceman wears. She is, okay, this is how I gotta get this guy, this guy's going towards the gay way, I gotta bring him back, I gotta bring him back from the gay way, so I'm do that through subterfuge, I'm gonna dress like a man. All right? That is how she approaches it.

Okay, now let me just ask you--I'm gonna digress for two seconds here. I met this girl Amy here, she's like floating around here and everything. Now, she just got divorced, right?...

All right, but the REAL ending of the movie is when they fight the MIGs at the end, all right? Because he has passed over into the gay way. They are this gay fighting fucking force, all right? And they're beating the Russians, the gays are beating the Russians. And it's over, and they fucking land, and Iceman's been trying to get Maverick the entire time, and finally, he's got him, all right? And what is the last fucking line that they have together? They're all hugging and kissing and happy with each other, and Ice comes up to Maverick, and he says, "Man, you can ride my tail, anytime!" And what does Maverick say? "You can ride mine!" Swordfight! Swordfight! Fuckin' A, man!
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And on a similar note, from the June 1995 Details profile of Val Kilmer:

He got all buffed out for the role of Iceman, Tom Cruise's adversary, and while he didn't like the script ("I turned it down at first, but Paramount had an option they exercised, so I had to do it"), Top Gun remains a key film of the '80s--the most representative of not only what was wrong with movies but what was wrong with this country's values. It's also the most unintentionally gay movie ever made by a big studio, so homoerotic it's like some kind of camp joke. It's impossible to watch it without thinking of Quentin Tarantino's hilarious monologue about the movie's gay subtext in the we're-hip-screenwriters-in-Hollywood flick Sleep With Me, which Kilmer hasn't seen. All he'll say about the above, while smiling, is "Oh yeah?"

by eff at April 28, 2003 3:54 PM


Damn! That Tarantino quote should be on the main page. Now I have to watch Top Gun again and laugh.

by MrBlank at April 28, 2003 5:34 PM


This probably explains how come I could never watch Top Gun without getting wood.

by mg at April 28, 2003 5:38 PM


it is so obvious when it put in the right context. think about that damn volleyball game. all they do is stand around posing and flexing all oily like. this is a big gay movie. of course, the same can really be said about any kind of movie where the bodies of the actors are more improtant than just about anything else.

I tell you, all my geek buddies have blue steel hard ons for arnold schwarzenegger and dont even get what a homo-erotic thrill it is for them to watch his movies. his movies SUCK. I can't stand any of them excpept for the terminator movies. do guys like this even get the homo-eroticism they are putting out?

Don't get me wrong, I'm down with the gay scene and you want a good dance party aint nothing like saturday night at the manhole, but when purportedly STRAIGHT guys drool over van damme and arnold when their movies are crap, it just makes me wonder. Of course, I'm the same way with Brad Pitt, but at least I KNOW it for gosh sakes.

by eff at April 28, 2003 6:03 PM


Dude, there's an all-you-can-eat spaghetti joint in Council Bluffs? How much freaking spaghetti would patrons want to eat? Then again, we used to have a Chesapeake Bay Seafood House that had all-you-can-eat crab legs. You'd see these morbidly obese folks squeezed into chairs chowing down on seafood for literally hours on end, alone.

by Anna at April 28, 2003 6:38 PM


Um. Bo and Luke were superfaggots. But that has nothing to do witht he post. Just in the Waylon Jennings mood is all. FUNNY. Absurdity is when you listen to the Dukes of Hazzard and Glen Campbell, because you know every dirty crack in these sidewalks of broadway... well, that's the nature of the business, I knew the risks, I coulda walked, I can still walk, but into what, same shit, different coffin? I suck at Age of Mythology, the online civilization geeknerdork game. I get killed so fast, because I'm too busy trying build the ultimate economy, letting my high end military slack.

phone ringing... hmmm shit, that was a long phone call from supportive older brother, it's now 726pm. Is there going to be a BS bash in Manhattan soon?

by LOCKHEED at April 28, 2003 7:26 PM


You're my hero.

by Elongatedbadger at April 30, 2003 2:03 AM