Higher Learning

Once again I’m writing about an old movie.  This one came out in 1995 starring a range of 90’s actors including Omar Epps, Laurence Fishburne, Kristi Swanson, Michael Rappaport, Ice Cube, and so on.

Now I am predicting that most of you who have seen this movie probably aren’t that big of a fan of the movie.  Or maybe you are, I don’t know.  But I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy it and I do so for a variety of reasons.

First of all, in case it is pointed out, the movie is a bit unrealistic and over the top.  I know.  But it is done so like a play would be.  Exaggerated in number of events and whatnot to make and connect the points.  Not to mention this film serves as sort of a period piece since it came out in the mid-90’s and reflects the film culture of that time in regards to race.  Boyz N The Hood, an excellent movie by the way, was released at the same time, so these were preceeding Spike Doing His Right Thing and Tyler Perry doing everything.

Anyways, back to what I like about this film.  First off, without even breaking it down, I am entertained by it.  I just am.  Not only by its intention, but also by just funny ass things.  For example, Cole Hauser.  I love this frickin guy.  His character is a horrifying ring leader of the skinheads, but he cracks me up.  If you’re unfamiliar w/ his work, he was the stocky dude in Dazed and Confused who chased down the freshmen in his truck.

And a fucking side note.  Dude, I was just retelling this insane story the other night.  Last year or so I wrote about BN’s Top 5 Near Death Experiences.  Well, this one I surely forgot to add.  And it ranks right up at the top…

Back when I was 25, I was living down in San Diego with an ex-girlfriend.  We were at the stage where we had hit so many bumps that we were just standing up in the cart at this point. Anyways, we were at a Saint Patrick’s Day festival at this park in Hillcrest.  For those of you unfamiliar w/ Hillcrest, it is a largely gay and lesbian community a handful of miles inland in San Diego.  Needless to say it is a rather friendly and embracing community.

However, fuck, here’s another side story. Bear with me…  I’ll get back to what I was talking about in a second…

The first night I hooked up w/ my then girlfriend I was involved in a semi-hate crime.  Shit, I feel like Forrest Gump sometimes w/ the stories I have.  Anyways, we were walking out of a bar all tangled up in one another.  You know arms through the hair.  Staggering.  Shirts being pulled this way and that way.  Now, my ex was 100% feminine and 100% beautiful.  Not even up for discussion, but at the time she had her hair cut really short.  Which us guys love by the way ;)  But in addition to having a short haircut, she also was rather tall for a woman.  5′9″.  And w/ whatever shoes she was wearing, was nearing my height.  So theoretically in the dark of night she could have potentially passed for a very feminine man.  Cause again we were in Hillcrest.

So, with that picture painted, a handful of off centered steps down the walk, this car of frat boys or whatnot drove right past us and threw a full un-opened can of beer at full force right at us.  Fortunately for us it hit me right in the shoulder.  Fortunately for me I was high on alcohol and my soon to be girlfriend.

By some stroke of luck the beer hit me lengthwise and just bounced off me like Superman and my reaction was as strange as ever.  “Huh…where were we?”  We began again.  Later we would be going, “wait, what the fuck???”

And to think if that beer can had hit at an angle and at one of our heads, it potentially could have killed one of us.   Insane.

So that was my hate crime side story…

Anyways, where was I?

Ah yeah.  The festival.

So my then girlfriend was soon to be my ex and I was all tight chested over everything.  Things weren’t bad yet but they were getting there.  At this point we were still able to enjoy such things as a free concert.

So there we were laying out on the lawn on one of her blankets drinking a beer or two…or four or five.  Who the fuck am I kidding.  And enjoying the local music.   Kids were running around.  Friends were laughing and slapping each other on the back.  A few men who appeared to be good buddies took the hug to a tonsil tickling.

Instantly reminded where we were.

But it’s all good.

My eyes quickly departed man love and made their way back to the main stage.  And what do I see?

Not Cole Hauser dressed up as a skinhead with a bunch of his cronies, but an actual group of 200 plus pound swastika tattooed skinheads.  Most shirtless, and one waving around a fucking broadsword.  I kid you not.

So yeah, that’s pretty fucking nauseating.  And pretty shocking really.  When the hell do you ever really see that?

Now what really got to me… Now keep in mind at 25 I had a Malcolm X and RFK picture on my wall.  I was pure idealism at this point in time.  So clearly I had some opinions that I’m sure greatly differed from the sword yielder.

But what got to me.  What really got to me, was that one of these fucking cretens had a four year old boy on his shoulder.  And was just bouncing this cute little fair haired tot to the rhythm of the music.  And you could see how happy this little kid was looking up to his heroes.  Reaching out playfully to grab at the swastika-laden arms of his I assume father.  Though they probably fucking stole him, right?

Anyways, it was too much for me to take.  Which means what really?  Brilliance on my part.  I told me girlfriend that I’d be right back.  She suspiciously asked,

“Where are you going?”

“I’m fine I’ll be right back”.

I watched the guy who had the kid on his shoulders set him down as he separated from the group and made his way to the beer line.  And to finish his profile, he too was comfortably over 200 lbs. A tall pitbull of a guy.

So naturally I made my way over in his direction.  Of course.

I cut him off before he got to the tent.

“Excuse me.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“What is up with you and all these tattoos…”

Time out.  On a scale of 1-10 how fucking ridiculously stupid can I be at times?  Ten.  The answer’s ten.

I continued.

“…we are at a concert here with families and everything and you and your friends clearly are going out of your way to show off all these swastika tattoos of hate.   I don’t get it.  You clearly seem proud of it, so I wanted you to explain it to me so I understand.”

Time out.

I want to paint this picture a little more clearly.  First off, what was so reckless about this situation was equally matched by what was so brilliant with what was occurring.   Here was this mass of an aggressive man.  Empowered by fear and whatnot.  And in that interaction, I fucking shrank him down to the size of his little relative.  I visibly watched the air pour out of him as I locked the Jedi mind shit on him.  Personally I don’t know where it came from but I instinctively knew how to shrinky-dink this son of a bitch.

“Um.  No….um.  No these tattoos are not about hate or anything.  They’re about the working class.  Working class pride.”

“What?  Nothing to do w/ the Jews or anything?”

“…No.  It’s…no”.

“Ok.  Alright.  Well thank you.  I just wanted to understand.  Have a good day.”

He turns and takes a few steps then comes back with…

“I could just kick your ass if you want”.

His power begins re-inflating.

And I turned straight back at him.

“Now why do you have to go there?  I was just asking you to explain yourself.”

Psssssssssssssssttttt.

He nodded and then headed not in the direction of the beer tent, but back to his boys.  And me, well I headed straight back to my girlfriend, tapped her on the shoulder as she was fully engaged in conversation and calmly stated,

“We need to start running.   Now.”

We slipped through the crowd and I could see the Neo-Nazis all clamoring around w/ the smell of anticipated new blood.

Once out of sight we ran like the wind, believe me.  With my ex 100% percent pissed at me (and hopefully a bit proud as well).

So that’s all I have to say about that.

But Higher Learning.

I enjoyed it again thoroughly.  Another reason because it was set at UCLA at a time when I was down there quite a bit.  Great times.  I actually played in a rugby game there against the Bruins that year. Back when I was dating Garr-Garr TW.  She was there to witness BN with his chicken legs a blazin’.  Such good memories all around.

And as a side note to the movie, the imdb profile is pretty entertaining.  I don’t know how close any of these actors came to playing these roles, but the film could have starred Dustin Hoffman as the professor, Tupak Shakur as Malik, and Drew Barrymore as Kristen.

I don’t know.  Check it out if you haven’t seen it.  I dig it.

And Michael Rappaport.  Forgot to mention him.  That douchebag is actually really good playing the part of a troubled soul seduced into a world of hate.   Hell, I have a Michael Rappaport story as well.  This post is getting out of control.  But fuck it.

Five years ago I was in Los Angeles with..hell a different girlfriend.  We were in some froo-froo restaurant meeting some of her friends.  Steve Martin actually came in if that gives you an idea to the size of the bill.  Anyways, while we were waiting for our table, Michael Rappaport came in w/ his wife and kid.  What was so unbelievable about this guy was that he would just stare at the pieces off ass (I love objectifying.  Just let me this one time) that walked back and forth as if a) his wife and daughter weren’t there.  And b) as if he wasn’t Michael Rappapor the semi-famous actor.  I mean all eyes were on him yet he was leering at these girls like he was hidden by a costume.  Literally a skirt (ahem) would walk by and he would seriously just stare at her crotch as she came, and then he leaned out of his chair and stared at her ass while she left.  I’ve honestly never seen anything like it.  It was obnoxious for strip club behavior.

So I went up to him and I’m like:

“Yo Mike!”

Ok.  That didn’t actually happen.  I just shared bewildered looks w/ my girlfriend and breathed, “what an asshole.”

Well, that’s it for this evening.

In the words of Fez,

“I bid you goodnight.”

BN