Am I dork? Look at me. I’m writing an essay
for a Web site called “Dork Forest.” It’s not
exactly something James Bond or 50 Cent are going to be doing
anytime soon.
As evidence of my anti-social behavior, I’d
like to confess my secret shame: making movie lists. “Best
Supporting Actress Performances of 1983.” “Best Comedies
of All-Time.” You get the idea. I filled notebooks. The
penchant was pathologically unstoppable. Almost impervious to
the powers of modern pharmaceuticals, though, thank Frank Capra,
it never reached the hospitalization stage. You may notice I talk
about the lists in the past tense. That’s because a version
of the lists was published in the form of a book called “1001:
A Video Odyssey.” Ah, the sweet, sweet release. Suddenly
my dorky obsession was years of careful, scholarly research. I
was purged! My lists now are limited to
the occasional office Oscar pool.
Remember John Nash? Mathematician. Nuts. Got
Russell Crowe some nice shiny trophies. (“A Beautiful Mind”
would be on the “Cinema Savant” list.) Yeah, Nash
is a dork until one day there’s a Nobel Prize and suddenly
he’s not so much dorky as he is a mad genius. People start
piling up pens on his desk.
So here’s the difference between being
a dork and not: turning a profit. You play Renaissance Pleasure
Faire in a tent in your backyard: dork, you own the Renaissance
Pleasure Faire: you’re living the American Dream. You
wear capes and do funny accents in your dorm room: dork. Get someone
to pay you a million dollars to do the same thing and you’re
Meryl Frickin’ Streep. Need I remind you who the richest
man in the world is? How cool is Bill Gates without the gazillions?
I’m not sure how you’re going
to convert your unquenchable longing to put on a spandex “Star
Trek” unitard and attend Klingon language class into a viable
business opportunity but somebody’s making money selling
booth space at those conventions.
I’ve worked at Disney a long time. Talk
about Dork Nirvana. There are people that collect Disney
limited-edition commemorative pins that depict every ride,
parade and event at every Disney theme park. They keep them in
books and go places and trade them with each other. There are
even pins with pictures of the different “themed”
trash cans. Yes, that’s right: collectible trash can pins.
I have lots of this e-baylicious stuff because I am occasionally
given it as an employee. I’m sorry: Cast Member. But am
I Disney dork? Yes, secretly. But what I am is a guy with a fun
job and what’s better than that?
So embrace your inner dork and market your own
line of wizard cloaks or write your sci-fi novel or open a Warhammer
franchise at the mall. Somebody just may want to pay you for all
that juicy, passionate dorkiness. You know, like in “40
Year Old Virgin,” “The Story of Louis Pasteur,”
“The King of Comedy” and… Oh, I could go on…
(ED. This was a new part of the dork forest
for me. As yet uncharted til explained by someone who has traveled
on foot through these parts. heh).
