All of this self-contemplation is giving me a headache

In 1992, a little movie called Wayne's World came out that changed my life. To most people, it was nothing more than a better than average movie adaptation of an SNL skit. But to me, this movie was like a giant onion: there were so many layers that I could peel away, and the closer I got to the center, the harder it was to avoid crying. For me, it wasn't just a lowbrow comedy full of bathroom humor, pop culture references, and crude adolescent wordplay. No, for me, this movie reflected my own personal journey through adolescence to discover my self-identity, a true bildungsroman, if you will.

Recently I had a chance to revisit this movie when I purchased it on DVD. I recited each throwaway line as if I had just found an old, broken-in baseball glove. I also finally understood some of the pop culture references now that my worldview had extended beyond its previous middle-school confines. I laughed. I cried. I was pulled away by a strong ripcord of sentimental nostalgia for what was easily the worst time of my life. Why does the movie continue to have such a profound effect on me? This can be most simply explained by pointing out the oddly large number of similarities between the protagonist of the movie, Wayne, and myself, Wayne. In ascending order of weirdness:

- Both of us grew up in a culturally barren suburb of a large American city. No surprise here. Millions of Americans grew up imprisoned in the harsh deserts of small town America. My hometown, Tewksbury, MA, is currently straddling the line between quaint, bucolic New England small town and the mind-numbing strip-mall blandness you see in the Aurora, IL of Wayne's World. Actually, it's more like an epic war and the evil forces of Wal-mart and Appleby's were mopping up the small pockets of resistance of community space and natural beauty that are left. Click here for an account of a true incident that happened to me and shows the evils of suburbia.

Not exactly Cam Neely

- Both of us were huge hockey fans. In the movie, Wayne is an ardent Blackhawks fan. I was an ardent Bruins fan. Indeed, I can still remember Fred Cusack’s voice (the local Bruins’ announcer through the mid 90’s) as his deep baritone during a power play would croon, "Oates to Neely...back to Bourque over to Sweeny back to Neely SCORE!" There was also Derek Sanderson, the color commentator who played for the Bruins in the 70’s, doing his trademark "Uh oh!" whenever the Bruins got a penalty. Indeed, while most people’s hatred for all things French or French-Canadian is rooted in Nazi collaboration or Celine Dion, my particular Francophobia is rooted in the Bruins heated rivalry with the Montreal Canadians.

- Both of us were heavy metal fans. When Wayne’s World came out, I was a huge heavy metal fan. I didn’t really like the doom and gloom of Slayer and Megadeth, but rather preferred the light-hearted party music of Def Leppard and Poison. CDs have come and gone through my huge collection, but I still have beat up copies of Def Leppard’s "Hysteria," Queensryche’s "Empire," GNR’s "Use Your Illusion" (both I and II), Europe’s "Final Countdown," and Whitesnake’s "Greatest Hits." With the advent of MP3 technology and the late Napster, I have accumulated a nice collection of those one hit wonders that transfixed me during middle school: Winger’s "Seventeen," Nelson’s "Love and Affection," Kix’s "Don’t Close Your Eyes," Ozzy and Lita Ford’s genius collaboration "If I Close my Eyes Forever" (apparently eye-closing was a fad in the late 80’s, early 90’s).

I once looked like this.

- Both of us had potbellies and (ahem) mullets. Perhaps the most frustrating thing for me was that I looked like the movie Wayne and while women loved him, I was systematically ignored by every female in middle school. I really did look like him. I was about as chubby as Mike Myers, I often wore torn up jeans (not the expensive, designer torn up jeans that were popular at the time, but cheap, JC Penney bought jeans that I had created holes in). Not only did I even had a mullet, I even frequently wore a cap and had the nervous tuck-my-hair-over-my-ear tic. My mullet grew long enough that the ends could just barely touch my mouth: sometimes I even chewed on it just because I could. Of course, this didn’t help my social standing. Nowadays, every uber-cool hip-to-irony college student can snicker at this hairstyle. When I tell other Swatties that I used to have a mullet, they snicker and even mention the Mullets Galore website. Integral to this snicker is a hint of condescension. Of course, this is nothing but a veiled form of classism. Listen buddy, just because I didn’t go to a fancy magnet school in a quiet college town or have two former hippie, folk music-listening, Harper’s magazine-reading, Volvo-driving, vegetarian, upper-class parents doesn’t mean you can poke fun of my socio-economic condition. Well, no you couldn’t accurately describe my parents as "struggling blue collar" types and I would not be caught with a mullet ever again, but the little headbanger inside of me still resents cultural elites.

Reconnecting with my self-identity

- The whole Asian connection. In Wayne’s World, Tia Carrere plays the Hong Kong singer of a rock group with whom Wayne falls in love. Tia Carrere’s ethnicity clearly isn’t 100% Chinese, though. I was wondering what exactly she was so I did a little research and confirmed my suspicion that she was at least part Filipino. To be more precise, she’s 1/4 Filipino, 1/4 Chinese, and half white. Well, I’m 1/4 Filipino too. Indeed, the surname Cabradilla is straight from the motherland (or you could say mother archipelago). Of course, because I look pure whitey, people just assume the name is Italian. This part of my heritage is almost a joke to me because my only connection to it is a several random stories from my dad; my granddad passed away when I was 3, before I could ever chill with him in Tagalog. The other Asian connection is that I’ve studied Chinese while in the movie Wayne learns Chinese as well (though he learns Cantonese while I learned Mandarin). The movie Wayne learns Chinese to pursue his part-Filipino love. Maybe I subconsciously chose to study Chinese in order to connect with the part-Filipino inside of me. Or maybe not.

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