Recently I saw the movie “Extract” starring Jason Bateman. Though it was billed to be a comedy, I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach with each additional scene. At times Mike Judge seemed to be channeling my bleak, claustrophobic future in an upper-class suburb, complete with BMW and boring wife.
Joel Reynolds runs some boring-ass company that makes uninteresting shit. And his co-workers are the village of idiots that serve us each and every day. Apparently he feels some sort of sympathy for this motley crew of losers, and refuses to fire even the most irredeemable ones. Plus, he doesn’t even cash in on his one good idea.
Watching this, seeing this wealthy, well-educated dude see his whole life collapse around him bummed me out. I mean, this guy possesses the same amount of education that I have, and yet has failed many years before I have. Perhaps someday I’ll be cruising around the cul-de-sacs, wondering where it all went wrong. Maybe I’ll have invented some boring thing that everyone uses, like more comfortable toilet paper or better tanning booths.
Also, he has this crazy, bearded friend who constantly gives him bad advice. For the most part, I try to edit anyone out of my life who has a beard that heavy and gives that bad of advice, but I know it is going to happen. Maybe I’ll think this bearded freak of a friend is somehow more “enlightened” than I am and that his coolness will rub off on me. Once I become this dude’s friend, I’ll be given vast quantities of drugs and get punched in the face a couple of times.
I’m worried that someday I’ll simply buy into this mediocre, stationary life. And sure, I’ll have it better than 99% of the world monetarily, but my life will still be total garbage. By that point, I will have gained some weight. At around 40, I will have lost the intense love of life, instead just sort of coasting by for an indefinite period of time. Those cool bands that I hold dear to my heart, forgotten. I’ll instead listen to NPR and think I’m being edgy by doing so. Occasionally a remnant of my cooler stuff will filter through the fog of mediocrity and boredom, like an off-the-cuff remark about music back in the day, but there will be little that makes me any different from other bored people of my socio-economic status.
“Extract” didn’t focus on kids, but mine will most likely start out as being complete tools. Then, when they see how much of a giant tool their own parents are, they’ll rebel by being ultra-cool and avant-garde, watching performances of women stuffing canned pasta into their vaginas. And perhaps they might start sine wave generator bands, beginning a whole new genre “Sinewave”.
It is at that precise point where I will win and the tide will turn.
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