High Fidelity and Chicago
So I was watching High Fidelity a little while ago. In fact it is still on some channel that Comcast, in their infinite wisdom, decided should come with digital cable. I just had a very good vodka martini made with Grey Goose and I have a light buzz. I know, one martini and a light buzz. Such a lightweight I'm becoming. I made it cold enough so that the small amount of water that was shed by the shaking ice crystallized in a thin layer on the surface of the drink. And it was damn good. But I digress.
I was thinking about why I really like High Fidelity. It's by no means what I would consider a great movie. It has no chance of cracking my top five. But I get a sort of warm fuzzy from watching it. I think that it is a combination of several factors.
First and foremost, it is set in Chicago. I've always had a great affection for Chicago. It was always a sort of shining city on the hill that I'd visited a few times in my childhood on family vacations. There were several times when I was in High School where Matt Loewe and I had plotted to drive up to Chicago in the morning, get lunch, buy a me new Blackhawks hat, maybe see the Sears Tower, and drive back home that night. Oh, the heady days of cheap gas. Sadly we never made our one day journey. Consequentially, when I was thinking about college, the only two schools I applied to were either in Chicago (Loyola) or near it (North Central College) much to the chagrin of my Belleville friends who lamented my moving so far away. I saw High Fidelity my senior year of high school. As I recall, it was me, my then girlfriend Jackie and several of my friends. Hell, it may have even been the night when Wier ate part of Kay Newby's small stuffed bear. That sure came back to bite me in the ass. A few short months later I moved near to Chicago and immediately began taking every opportunity I had to visit the city. I think Averbeck and I went to Chicago for the first time not a week after we'd arrived in Naperville to go to North Central College. We went and saw a 3-D pornographic film at a midnight showing at the Music Box called "Hard Candy." Let me tell you, when a man cums at the camera in 3-D the whole audience throws up their hands in terror. Whatever interest I may have had in cumming on a woman's face was exorcised that night I can assure you. I think it's fitting that the first place I went to in Chicago was portrayed in the film. Then I ended up hanging out in Wicker Park a lot to see various short films and other happenings at the little art galleries in the area whenever I could over the next 6 years until I moved away. Wicker Park, of course is where Championship Vinyl was in the film. So as I said, you could have put damn near any film in Chicago and have it so intimately connected to various Chicago locations and I would be on board.
But is isn't just the locations. It's also that 20-something, living in a city, working in a record store, going to lots of local shows kind of lifestyle that I've always envied. There's always been a part of me that wishes I had spent my 20s like that. It's the contemporary incarnation of the bohemian lifestyle that I think I'll always be somewhat drawn too. So watching this movie I get to live that life vicariously for a couple of hours.
There's also the little things in the movie that add up. Arguing about music. The way that dark-haired girl from Roseanne who talked to the bald clerk in the store reminds me of Denise. The guys listening to the new Belle and Sebastian. That scene where they beat Tim Robbins head in with a telephone. The deviation from the typical romantic comedy script that shows how complicated relationships really are. The discussion John Cusack has about how other women are tempting because relationships with them are idealized and without problems.
When I saw it that night in the theatre with my friends and my then girlfriend in Belleville, I think it was everything I was looking for in Chicago. When I lived near it, it was everything I was getting to know. And now it's everything I miss.
I was thinking about why I really like High Fidelity. It's by no means what I would consider a great movie. It has no chance of cracking my top five. But I get a sort of warm fuzzy from watching it. I think that it is a combination of several factors.
First and foremost, it is set in Chicago. I've always had a great affection for Chicago. It was always a sort of shining city on the hill that I'd visited a few times in my childhood on family vacations. There were several times when I was in High School where Matt Loewe and I had plotted to drive up to Chicago in the morning, get lunch, buy a me new Blackhawks hat, maybe see the Sears Tower, and drive back home that night. Oh, the heady days of cheap gas. Sadly we never made our one day journey. Consequentially, when I was thinking about college, the only two schools I applied to were either in Chicago (Loyola) or near it (North Central College) much to the chagrin of my Belleville friends who lamented my moving so far away. I saw High Fidelity my senior year of high school. As I recall, it was me, my then girlfriend Jackie and several of my friends. Hell, it may have even been the night when Wier ate part of Kay Newby's small stuffed bear. That sure came back to bite me in the ass. A few short months later I moved near to Chicago and immediately began taking every opportunity I had to visit the city. I think Averbeck and I went to Chicago for the first time not a week after we'd arrived in Naperville to go to North Central College. We went and saw a 3-D pornographic film at a midnight showing at the Music Box called "Hard Candy." Let me tell you, when a man cums at the camera in 3-D the whole audience throws up their hands in terror. Whatever interest I may have had in cumming on a woman's face was exorcised that night I can assure you. I think it's fitting that the first place I went to in Chicago was portrayed in the film. Then I ended up hanging out in Wicker Park a lot to see various short films and other happenings at the little art galleries in the area whenever I could over the next 6 years until I moved away. Wicker Park, of course is where Championship Vinyl was in the film. So as I said, you could have put damn near any film in Chicago and have it so intimately connected to various Chicago locations and I would be on board.
But is isn't just the locations. It's also that 20-something, living in a city, working in a record store, going to lots of local shows kind of lifestyle that I've always envied. There's always been a part of me that wishes I had spent my 20s like that. It's the contemporary incarnation of the bohemian lifestyle that I think I'll always be somewhat drawn too. So watching this movie I get to live that life vicariously for a couple of hours.
There's also the little things in the movie that add up. Arguing about music. The way that dark-haired girl from Roseanne who talked to the bald clerk in the store reminds me of Denise. The guys listening to the new Belle and Sebastian. That scene where they beat Tim Robbins head in with a telephone. The deviation from the typical romantic comedy script that shows how complicated relationships really are. The discussion John Cusack has about how other women are tempting because relationships with them are idealized and without problems.
When I saw it that night in the theatre with my friends and my then girlfriend in Belleville, I think it was everything I was looking for in Chicago. When I lived near it, it was everything I was getting to know. And now it's everything I miss.