FunnyPhilly.com

   A few weeks back, we caught the movie Adventureland. It was billed in Apatow-esque fashion, with an 80’s-mustached Bill Hader spouting one-liners and Freaks and Geeks star Martin Starr getting a real role after his hilarious but mostly silent Unibomber-beard dude in Knocked Up. The experience didn’t live up to the billing though, which was a really nice surprise. There were definitely funny moments, but instead of hearing yet more ad-libbed “Know how I know you’re gay?” lines, we saw a story of a kid getting his first real job, experiencing all of the crazy bullshit that I imagine happens to everyone when they get their first menial job. I know it happened at mine.

   Adventureland is an amusement park in Pittsburgh, where our overeducated and unskilled protagonist finds work when his parents can no longer afford to send him to New York for the summer. My first job was at Ponderosa in Oaklyn, New Jersey, where, at the age of sixteen, I would learn to grill 200 steaks an hour during the weekend dinner rush. I would be paid $3.15 for that hour. Pre-tax.
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   I’m a sucker for the show Survivorman. If it’s a weekend day and I haven’t set foot out the door yet, there’s a good chance Les Stroud is painted across the flat-screen, explaining how to create fire from a radio battery or catch a fish with a piece of broken glass and a harmonica. Each sounding of that commercial bumper chik-oon chik-oon chick-oon signals an increase in my survivability, the set of knowledge that I know would keep me alive were I to find myself in the desert with nothing but urine, or in a glacial crevasse with only one match and a hunk of seal blubber.

   As much as I may fantasize that I could survive the elements in completely implausible scenarios, deep down, I never truly believed that I would put this knowledge to the test. The closest I’ve ever come to a survival situation was being stranded by a blizzard in my office building after hours. I had no food and limited change for the vending machine. But a few short months ago, that all changed during a week-long camping trip.
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   And the Grammy goes to…

   I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched the Grammys. I actually don’t know if I’ve ever watched the show, certainly never in its entirety. But we were flipping through the channels that night, and hesitated for a moment when the image of a large, multi-tiered stage and orchestra appeared. "When ‘The Grammys’ returns, a performance by Best Album nominee Radiohead!"

   We paused, impressed. Radiohead? These guys are innovators in sound, composition, music technology, and with this particular album, marketing. It’s available on their website for free. The band asks that you pay what you’d like for it. Such trust in fans in this era of instant gratification, self-justified digital piracy, and economic implosion is unheard of. So what the hell were they doing being nominated for a Grammy? I thought only top-selling country artists and Coldplay won these things.
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It was a Saturday afternoon like most of the others over that summer in Sea Isle City. Eighty degrees outside, not a cloud in the clear, blue sky, and we were all sprawled out in the living room of the apartment with the shades drawn, lights out, air conditioner on full, each of us huddled in a blanket in Carbonite Chamber-like stasis, watching The Real World San Francisco reruns. I groaned, stretched out my legs, and lurched from the couch into the kitchen. Seconds later, I returned, carrying a sleeve of Pringles.
 “Pringles?” I offered.
Some of the guys kept staring at the TV, mumbling “no thanks”, but a few slowly craned their hungover heads in my direction, eyes red from lack of sleep and prolonged, unblinking exposure to poorly scripted reality television. The eyes dropped, settling on the can of precious, crispy Pringles.
“Sure,” came a lazy reply. Then, faster than any of them could possibly react, I dropped the can to reveal my bare nutsack.
Their groans of disgust were sweet music to my ears. “Jesus, it’s like a wrinkled wallet,” someone muttered. The complaints turned to laughter. I got them. They knew it. It’s like I’d absorbed part of their souls. They were victims of the Medusack.
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