You have your fast times, I've had mine
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- December 11, 2021
- 629
Does the name Jeff Spicoli mean anything to you?
No?
How about the line, “People on ’ludes should not drive?”
OK, now it’s coming into focus, am I right?
Let’s nail it down with this interlude:
Pizza delivery guy walks into the classroom and asks, “Who ordered the double cheese and sausage?” and Jeff Spicoli, seated in the front row says, with admirable aplomb, “Right here, dude.”
There are some movies that would rot on the ash heap of cinematic history were it not for a single character in a less-than-starring role.
That’s Sean Penn in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Without him, it’s just another teen flick, a feckless confection aimed at the lowest common denominator, an utterly forgettable waste of time.
Instead, it’s a tour de force performance, and that’s why there’s a life-sized Spicoli that greets customers who enter Surf’s Up, an oceanfront restaurant located in Emerald Isle, just this side of the Bogue Inlet Pier. The Carolina coast is dotted with similar establishments — my wife and I have been to scores of them — but there’s only one with the daily specials chalked onto his surfboard.
True, “Fast Times” is set in Southern California, thousands of miles away from Surf’s Up, but as Jeff Spicoli has observed, “All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz and I’m fine.”
What’s not so fine is the realization that, come 2022, that movie will be 40 years old, a stunning fact that creates in me a sense of despair so deep and disquieting as to be almost debilitating.
Where does the time go or, more to the point, how can we stop it?
I suppose humans have been trying to do precisely that since they crawled from the primordial ooze only to discover that, despite their evolutionary advantages and preeminent position in the food chain, they were as doomed as sightless fish trapped underwater.
To quote George Carlin, “Everything that God makes … dies.”
It seems I always get a bit depressingly philosophical around the holidays, turning inward for answers when I ought to be more like Jeff Spicoli, happy just to be near enough to head for the ocean anytime I feel the urge, not because I have to, but because I can.
Ever see a snowman on the beach?
It’s a rarity, at least in these parts, but I came across one after a freakish ice and snow storm nearly 20 years ago. It was New Year’s Eve, and someone had constructed a Frosty-esque creation there at the water’s edge, where waves threatened but spared it.
I thought that was the greatest thing I’d ever seen, right up there with the aurora borealis, “Chinatown” and the Patti Smith concert in December 1976 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.
It’s not a long drive from South Bend, but when the lake effect snow machine is running full bore, time slows down considerably. Still, it wasn’t as dicey as the night four or five of us piled into a rusty blue Ford Econoline van determined to make it to Kalamazoo to see David Bowie on his “Station to Station” tour.
This was of paramount importance, and no icy roads were going to deter us, though things got just a little bit disconcerting when the heater conked out as we slid across the state line into Michigan.
There’s just something about a rock concert in the depths of a Midwestern winter that brings out the Donner Party in some of us.
Speaking of memorable rock shows, I remember the time I took my wife — then my fiancée — and my old college roommate and drove up to Cleveland to see the Black Crowes, who put on an outstanding performance, one that reaffirmed my belief in the power of music, even though it was the early '90s and, well, enough about that.
Afterward, we gathered with a knot of other diehards, shivering as Lake Erie did its worst to dissuade us, waiting for the band to board their bus. All of a sudden, Johnny Colt pushed his way through a service door and walked over to where we’d gathered.
It was the coolest thing, the bass player for the Black Crowes taking the time to talk to us, and it’s a warm memory even now.
Things like that don’t happen anymore, I suppose, but I wouldn’t know because it’s been a long time since we trekked to Raleigh to see Elton John on his farewell tour, back in the prepandemic days.
I take comfort in the small things — creating a perfect Christmas tree, walking after midnight and hearing the coyotes and the owls, rolling out the recyclables, and winning some at fantasy football — all the while knowing I ought to be doing much, much more.
Hear this: “I went to the Stones concert and who do I see backstage? It’s Mick! So I cruise on over. I’m gonna meet the man, ya know? He says, ‘Hey bro! What’s your name?’ I go, ‘Jeff Spicoli, dude, good to meet you.’ And he goes, ‘Good to meet you, Jeff.’”
I understand fact and fiction aren’t all that closely related and that Southern California and Eastern Carolina are a continent apart, but I’m happy I can still remember what fast times felt like.