they call me, "the nerdy guy"
Apr. 4th, 2007 01:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerThis is sorta a Hefner Monologue, but I've decided to put the actual story behind a cut-text, leaving skimmers free to just skim right ahead to the anecdotal punchline.
My boss, Peter, said, "I have something to tell you. You're not gonna like it, but I find it so funny, I'm gonna tell you anyway. So I've been talking with several customers about you recently..."
And I thought, aw man, people aren't complaining about me, are they? I know I've been snarky and judgmental in the past, but I've really tried to be better, even if the people are total idiots...!
Because yes, there definitely are times when I feel like a person frequenting my store is a total moron. There was even a time when, occasionally, I really didn't bother masking my feelings too much. But I've honestly tried to be better, knowing that, at any given occasion, someone could be looking down at *me.*
Peter once said, "I can never understand it, John. You're an actor! You should be able to bullshit being nice to the jerk and idiot customers! Look at me! People think I'm a nice and helpful guy!"
And I'm like, "Yes, Peter, that's because you're the Antichrist, while I am a walking open wound."
Peter was born a bitter asshole, and growing up as the only boy among four sisters only made him worse. But me, even though I wore my heart all over my body like a foam Disneyland character costume, I was determined not to become the Comic Book Guy.
Like, I had this one customer come into the store a few weeks back. Right from the start, I pegged him as Vin Diesel's brain-damaged frat boy brother, and my initial response to his slack-jawed guffawing was only intensified when he gravitated straight for BATMAN: HUSH RETURNS. Bad enough that the original HUSH was the comic book equivalent of the most utterly vapid, cliched Hollywood schlock (not surprising, as it was written by the guy who did COMMANDO and Howie Long's FIRESTORM), but HUSH RETURNS was even worse, a middling, painfully mediocre cash-in just waiting for a sucker.
But I caught myself before I went any further. I thought, Ok, stop it, you have no right to pass judgment on this guy. What he wants to read is his choice, even if YOU don't think it's worthwhile. If he likes it, why should you care? To which the voice of Peter chimed in, And if he's buying a lot, who gives a shit? Suck 'im dry!
Because it's not just bad for the store when people don't buy comics. It's bad for the industry, period. We want people to buy comics, even bad comics. That was why I never actively discouraged customers from buying something, but made the conscious effort to steer them towards the actual good stuff in the store. Because I don't want to just promote comics, I want to promote quality! Er, within my own totally subjective opinions, of course, but I am comforted in the knowledge that most people love my recommendations.
So taking on a mindset of belligerent philanthropy, I thought, Ok, when he comes up to buy HUSH RETURNS, I'll make a few suggestions for things he might also like, things that he could get for the same price as that book, but are far better. Which I was just about to do, when he asked me:
"Hey, do you have the latest issue of 'UNI-SIN-KNEE' X-MEN?" That was best as I can approximate how he pronounced it.
I said, "Wait, what?"
"'UNI-SIN-KNEE' X-MEN?"
"You... uh, you mean ULTIMATE X-MEN?"
"No, no, 'UNI-SIN-KNEE' X-MEN!"
"... you... you mean UNCANNY X-MEN?"
"Aw, is that how it's pronounced! Huh huh!"
"I... I... yeah. You can... find it in the back."
"Great, awesome!"
"... enjoy BATMAN: HUSH RETURNS, sir."
So you see, if I could hold my own during that, I figured I was definitely improving. Which was why I was so concerned when Peter came in yesterday, saying, "I have something to tell you. You're not gonna like it, but I find it so funny, I'm gonna tell you anyway. So I've been talking with several customers about you recently..."
"Yeah...?"
"... and it seems like every time someone talks about you, they always describe you as 'that nerdy guy.' Like, they're asking about one of the workers here, and I'd say, 'You mean Mark, the big guy who works Sundays?' and they're like, 'nah, I mean the nerdy guy.' 'Oh, John.' 'Yeah, that's him!'"
Yes. To an undisclosed number of customers at Big Planet Comics in Georgetown, I am known as "the nerdy guy."
And it's affectionate enough, I'm sure. Because by and large, the customers really like me and love the recommendations I make. And I can't say I'm entirely surprised, since I know I have a passion for the material, matched by a pretty rich knowledge of most stuff in the store. Plus, some have found me rather "intense."
But still. "The Nerdy Guy?"
Peter, who is the J. Jonah Jameson to my Peter Parker, the Dr. Cox to my J.D.*, had a good long laugh at that one. For a day now, I've been shifting back and forth between good natured, self-deprecating humor and SCRUBS-ian (or just plain Hefnerian) neurosis over this.
Because the thing that really bites me about all this, though? The thing that I just can't get my brain around?
It's the fact that comic geeks are calling me... "The Nerdy Guy."
...
Just something else to go into a HEFNER MONOLOGUES book someday.
*except less actually intelligent and knowledgeable than Perry, although his relationship to his girlfriend is freakishly similar to Cox and Jordan's.
My boss, Peter, said, "I have something to tell you. You're not gonna like it, but I find it so funny, I'm gonna tell you anyway. So I've been talking with several customers about you recently..."
And I thought, aw man, people aren't complaining about me, are they? I know I've been snarky and judgmental in the past, but I've really tried to be better, even if the people are total idiots...!
Because yes, there definitely are times when I feel like a person frequenting my store is a total moron. There was even a time when, occasionally, I really didn't bother masking my feelings too much. But I've honestly tried to be better, knowing that, at any given occasion, someone could be looking down at *me.*
Peter once said, "I can never understand it, John. You're an actor! You should be able to bullshit being nice to the jerk and idiot customers! Look at me! People think I'm a nice and helpful guy!"
And I'm like, "Yes, Peter, that's because you're the Antichrist, while I am a walking open wound."
Peter was born a bitter asshole, and growing up as the only boy among four sisters only made him worse. But me, even though I wore my heart all over my body like a foam Disneyland character costume, I was determined not to become the Comic Book Guy.
Like, I had this one customer come into the store a few weeks back. Right from the start, I pegged him as Vin Diesel's brain-damaged frat boy brother, and my initial response to his slack-jawed guffawing was only intensified when he gravitated straight for BATMAN: HUSH RETURNS. Bad enough that the original HUSH was the comic book equivalent of the most utterly vapid, cliched Hollywood schlock (not surprising, as it was written by the guy who did COMMANDO and Howie Long's FIRESTORM), but HUSH RETURNS was even worse, a middling, painfully mediocre cash-in just waiting for a sucker.
But I caught myself before I went any further. I thought, Ok, stop it, you have no right to pass judgment on this guy. What he wants to read is his choice, even if YOU don't think it's worthwhile. If he likes it, why should you care? To which the voice of Peter chimed in, And if he's buying a lot, who gives a shit? Suck 'im dry!
Because it's not just bad for the store when people don't buy comics. It's bad for the industry, period. We want people to buy comics, even bad comics. That was why I never actively discouraged customers from buying something, but made the conscious effort to steer them towards the actual good stuff in the store. Because I don't want to just promote comics, I want to promote quality! Er, within my own totally subjective opinions, of course, but I am comforted in the knowledge that most people love my recommendations.
So taking on a mindset of belligerent philanthropy, I thought, Ok, when he comes up to buy HUSH RETURNS, I'll make a few suggestions for things he might also like, things that he could get for the same price as that book, but are far better. Which I was just about to do, when he asked me:
"Hey, do you have the latest issue of 'UNI-SIN-KNEE' X-MEN?" That was best as I can approximate how he pronounced it.
I said, "Wait, what?"
"'UNI-SIN-KNEE' X-MEN?"
"You... uh, you mean ULTIMATE X-MEN?"
"No, no, 'UNI-SIN-KNEE' X-MEN!"
"... you... you mean UNCANNY X-MEN?"
"Aw, is that how it's pronounced! Huh huh!"
"I... I... yeah. You can... find it in the back."
"Great, awesome!"
"... enjoy BATMAN: HUSH RETURNS, sir."
So you see, if I could hold my own during that, I figured I was definitely improving. Which was why I was so concerned when Peter came in yesterday, saying, "I have something to tell you. You're not gonna like it, but I find it so funny, I'm gonna tell you anyway. So I've been talking with several customers about you recently..."
"Yeah...?"
"... and it seems like every time someone talks about you, they always describe you as 'that nerdy guy.' Like, they're asking about one of the workers here, and I'd say, 'You mean Mark, the big guy who works Sundays?' and they're like, 'nah, I mean the nerdy guy.' 'Oh, John.' 'Yeah, that's him!'"
Yes. To an undisclosed number of customers at Big Planet Comics in Georgetown, I am known as "the nerdy guy."
And it's affectionate enough, I'm sure. Because by and large, the customers really like me and love the recommendations I make. And I can't say I'm entirely surprised, since I know I have a passion for the material, matched by a pretty rich knowledge of most stuff in the store. Plus, some have found me rather "intense."
But still. "The Nerdy Guy?"
Peter, who is the J. Jonah Jameson to my Peter Parker, the Dr. Cox to my J.D.*, had a good long laugh at that one. For a day now, I've been shifting back and forth between good natured, self-deprecating humor and SCRUBS-ian (or just plain Hefnerian) neurosis over this.
Because the thing that really bites me about all this, though? The thing that I just can't get my brain around?
It's the fact that comic geeks are calling me... "The Nerdy Guy."
...
Just something else to go into a HEFNER MONOLOGUES book someday.
*except less actually intelligent and knowledgeable than Perry, although his relationship to his girlfriend is freakishly similar to Cox and Jordan's.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 05:54 pm (UTC)Nerd amongst nerds... you win!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 05:55 pm (UTC)Life is a means to an end for you. Everything that happens to you, regardless of how good or bad or uncomfortable or hilarious it is, is fodder for entertaining people. And in a sense, your entire life is imbued with this self-proscribed meaning of entertainment for others.
To a smaller extent, I think lots of people do this through things like LJ, but in a way they do it the other way around. Life happens for them, and sometimes it's worth it to use life's events to entertain other people. But for you, the entertaining part is always the goal, and anything that happens to you in life can be fit into achieving that goal, continuously.
It's a good thing you have so much energy, Fuzzy. It sounds exhausting! =)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:08 pm (UTC)Well, perhaps life had become a means to an end for me, in order to give the crap and the pain a purpose. To turn it back around into entertainment in order to preserve myself, the validate my own feelings by getting others to react to my experiences, and/or to gain the approval of others by amusing them?
I mean, some people don't open up and share their stuff at all. While others (many, many people on LJ, for example) do, but with no point other than to bitch about it. Now you know me, I'm a high-disclosure kinda guy, so I want to be open at all times. So I figure that if I can at least turn it into entertainment, I can get away with it and people will listen, even enjoy what I have to say. And if I can make a career out of it, all the better.
I truly do worry sometimes that I'm gonna die young, just by burning myself out like Klaus Kinski did. It is pretty damn exhausting, but give me an audience, and I'll somehow find energy reserves. Don't ask me how.
What do you think? It's a fascinating point you bring up. But I am kinda amazed it took you this long!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:11 pm (UTC)Of course, now I wonder if Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank Pym, and Bruce Banner all secretly call Peter "The Nerdy Guy" behind his back.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:17 pm (UTC)AND the glorious green screen Donnie Osmond version.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:27 pm (UTC)In any case, I think telling stories is your defining trait, regardless of the intents or justifications behind it. You ARE a storyteller, you have to be. It just so happens that your life can be fashioned into collections of stories, and so you tell people about yourself as a result.
Is it because life is a convenient subject for your stories, or is it because you want people to know everything about you, and you share this knowledge through storytelling? What you say seems to imply the latter, but I get the impression that it's the former, just from when we hung out face to face and talked on the phone. Maybe it doesn't matter which it is.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:38 pm (UTC)I've got so many possible theories as to why I'm like this, and maybe more than one could be true. Sometimes I do wish that someone could write up my bio and stats like on the back of a superhero trading card, just so I could know exactly what my deal is!
I will say this, though. From even when I was about two years old, I would go to my neighbor's house and perform the entirety of Disney's ROBIN HOOD from memory. And based on how much I like to quote other things, perhaps what you say about my life being a convenient subject for my stories... perhaps even if I didn't have storytelling fodder in my life, I'd just find my stories somewhere else.
In either case, I just sincerely hope that I can turn this trait of mine to my advantage.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 08:05 pm (UTC)I'm usually of a "shut up and enjoy it." Unless it's actually crap. And if they're enjoying crap...? Rrargh.
Nerdy guy meet Comic Book Gal.
Date: 2007-04-04 08:10 pm (UTC)My latest two favorite exchanges was the guy who wanted to know where he could find something to satisfy his palate for girl-- but had nothing to do with zombies at all, as they creeped him out. "I want to see a human kill things."
Or:
"So uhm-- where's the hardcore anime stuff?"
"Excuse me?"
The man specifically asked for tentacles. Keep in mind that I'm female, and that I'm asian, and that I automatically get weirded out when there's someone who asks for manga. But eugh. I finally tossed a copy of the Adult Previews catalog at him when I couldn't find what he wanted off of Diamond.
Re: Nerdy guy meet Comic Book Gal.
Date: 2007-04-04 08:24 pm (UTC)Yeah, that right there? That's why I'm glad our store doesn't sell adult material. Our Bethesda location, where I worked for six years, does, and I always get squicky working around those customers. This feeling only got worse when I took the second job at the video store, a store which, thanks to Netflix, got its business primarily from pornos.
You may or may not recall a couple of my stories from that store, but those too will go in the book. Suffice it to say, I'm still rather addicted to pocket hand sanitizers.
Heh, Comic Book Gal. But hey, you have the distinct advantage of being a very attractive female, rather than a slovenly fat balding dude voiced by Hank Azaria. Well, you could be voiced by Hank Azaria for all I know.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 10:40 pm (UTC)You don't strike me as nerdy, though. Geeky, yes, but unless you've got a pocket protector I don't know about, you're probably okay.
I think you've just got unimaginative customers. It's kind of weird to nickname one of the comic books store clerks nerdy, even if you don't distinguish between "geeky" and "nerdy", which I do. It's just not "trademarky" enough if you're talking about the staff of a comic book store. I've got Apologetic Metalhead Guy, Bizarro Danny Bonaduce and The One that Hates Omar. Clear, distinct, only describes one of them at a time...
no subject
Date: 2007-04-04 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 04:35 am (UTC)Damn it, you've inspired me. I need to come up with fun nicknames for some of these people.
Oh, and I have utterly failed to come up with a smart, sassy response to your wonderful response to my response to your Klaus Kinski comment. Everything you said just made me smile big time, and no emoticon can even adequately convey that.
I am hopefully gonna have my Commentary Track responses back to you soonish, though! :)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 04:36 am (UTC)I like when you define me! Someday, you may just write the Heftionary!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 04:38 am (UTC);p
(Alternate response: "What impression?")
Re: Nerdy guy meet Comic Book Gal.
Date: 2007-04-05 05:35 am (UTC)I identity more as more of a geek though.
From Off the Top of My Head
Date: 2007-04-05 05:38 am (UTC)Re: From Off the Top of My Head
Date: 2007-04-05 05:45 am (UTC)Re: Nerdy guy meet Comic Book Gal.
Date: 2007-04-05 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 03:12 pm (UTC)Also, I've had similar conversation issues with people like the UNI-SIN-KNEE guy. It's mind-boggling how stupid some people can be.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 06:54 pm (UTC)See, you need more people at the comic book/graphic novel/anime porn store, so that you could have a "High Fidelity" situation. Just coming up with top 5 lists all day.
Either that or a gun...for the killing.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 07:11 pm (UTC)While this wasn't honestly dreamed-up as a rip-off of HIGH FIDELITY, I might just have to put some disclaimer in there saying, "Yeah, not an intentional rip-off; all I can say in my defense is that I really DO this stuff."
no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 03:14 am (UTC)That's okay. (AJ tells me that it's even better with the director's commentary on so you can listen to Werner Herzog tell the tale of how the Peruvians working on the movie offered to kill Kinski several times and he refused, saying that the shooting wasn't finished yet and that when the time was right he'd kill him himself. They were so married.) You have already proven your smart sassyness, and the smiling big-time is fractionally better than sassyness anyway.
Very cool. But don't worry, I won't deduct marks for lateness.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 03:26 am (UTC)OK, so I think you're one of the select few people who I'll want to read a short fanfic I'm writing now. Remember my SUPERDREAMTEAM? Well, I have come up with an idea that's too fucking good (and challenging!
Yeah, but trying to show the smiling just isn't the same via LJ. Uh, just refer to the LJ icon please! Yeah, like that.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 07:03 am (UTC)Yes, now I understand. That smiling big-time. Always glad to provoke that.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 08:20 pm (UTC)which is not uncommon for comedians and performers.. you're putting yourself out there to entertain people.
but you also do it to gain validation.. the subconscious idea, or maybe not so subconscious idea, is that if you cant beat 'em, join 'em. if you cant beat your issues and hurts, throw them all out on the table and say "lookie here, everyone!". if you cant beat the people you feel, deep down, are judging and even attacking you, then at least you can beat them to the punch.
but it also, at a point, provides a means to address the issues and the hurts without actually ever dealing with them.
you have come a long way, and grown a lot (particularly in regards to relationships with others). but there's a lot of dealing that needs to be done.
the monologues are healthy in that they cause you to look at your junk (and we all have junk, little brother, so dont think i'm casting any stones here)... but they are also your defense.
so you need to question it; at what point do they stop being a means to work out your junk and become a way for you to hold onto your junk and not move on?
but there is great potential for the monologues to be cathartic. just maybe combined with some therapy, so that a professional is helping lead you through the stuff even as you are expressing it in your other ways.
besides.. the more we understand our issues and drives, the better we can express and articulate them.. which can only make the HMs better.
so now we just need to get you some insurance, huh?
no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 08:22 pm (UTC)i hear he's been pretty hung up on getting *that* for years now.