Basket Case

Is it weird that I can name the winners of Survivor in chronological order?

Is it strange that I know all the lyrics to High School Musical?

It is troubling that in the most recent episode of Prison Break I recognized the exterior of a supermarket as being used in the underappreciated 1999 film The Thirteenth Floor? (And then equally knowing that in the scene in question in said film, the reverse angle on Craig Bierko, as opposed to Gretchen Mol's angle, was filmed in an entirely different location?)

I've been catching myself more and more in these idiot savant moments, and it's starting to become stranger and stranger. The problems with some of these morsels of trivial knowledge are slightly running closer and closer with the advantages to be had with such a brain of pop culture mumbo-jumbo.

Equally, I have been mildly haunted by a good friend of mine saying, when I called his buddies "those crazy people," he responded, "What do you mean? You're the first lunatic I ever knew," referring to our heavily quirky friendship that was formed in the Saint Mary's College High School year of 2000-2001. I'll be walking across my front yard to get the mail and notice I have been mumbling incoherancies to myself with nary a reason. When I run back conversations in my head--usually recent, but not exclusively--and I add new dialogue from my side that I should have said at the time, I will make appropriate hand gestures to accentuate my intelligent and witty [post-conversation] points, which was only pointed out to me recently by my sister that this is fucking creepy, especially tied with the fact that I unknowingly mumble said dialogue. I will visibly wince when remembering a truly horrible/embarrassing moment from any number of places from my life, as opposed to keeping it inside my own brain, safe, where it will inevitably become an ulcer.

On the one hand, it's good to say that in my chosen field--a clusterfuck of filmmaking, arts journalism and snobbishness--having such media knowledge is an advantage, one that will take me far and just maybe let me stand out.

On the other hand, I feel that in knowing, say, that Thomas Ian Nicholas from Rookie of the Year and the American Pie series is heavily Christian, I have abruptly pushed out vital knowledge that regular human beings use, as opposed to Invasion hybrids like myself. What piece of information will push out my trigonometry skills? Will my obsession with this year's Oscar race make me forget specifics of the Louisiana Purchase? Will seeing Jackass Number Two take the place in my brain that once knew the smell of the trees at my childhood home on 1582 Milvia between Cedar and Vine?

And on the third hand--the one on the arm sticking out of my ear--am I finally noticing what everyone else has known? That Marcus Gorman is just crazy? That this spaz of a kid who grew up to be a spaz of an adult may just be off his rocker, even just a little?

*Sigh* I don't know.