I got dumped. It was extremely painful. I loved her or I thought I did. We held each other. We cried. I cried more than her because that’s how I roll. Then, she’d kiss me gently and say, “Don’t lose your sensitivity. Just don’t ever lose your sensitivity.” I just cried and kept saying, “I love you so much.” I meant it….a lot. She’d say it. I think she meant it when she said it. She was confusing. It was about four days later she was kissing someone else. She told me that was how she got over people. I have my own ways of getting over people. I make films. Thus, began, Geek Loves Punk.
Geeks. I’m an expert on geeks. I identify as a geek. Geek is a relative word but this is my definition of geek and of myself. I feel everything intensely. That’s why I have to write and make films. So, that I can get all this stuff that I’m feeling out of my system. What I like about film and screenwriting in particular is that I can express a million different feelings through five or six different characters. I honestly relate to all the characters in the film. Geeks tend to be more sensitive. They tend to move slower through life. Socially, we definitely develop slower. Everyone’s dating before us. Everyone’s just moving so much faster in everything than us. Little known fact though, we do have things in common with punks.
Punks. The biggest underlying thing that I saw with the punks that I met was how much music meant to them. That might have been the one thing I identified with the punks; the punks being all my ex-girlfriend’s friends. They were annoying, rude, and I hated most of them. The ones I liked were the women. I just didn’t understand why the women dated such losers. Most of the guys were losers. I’m sure it’s just the tiny little group that I encountered. That’s not all punks. The music, though, the music is when the punks would become extremely reverent. Music was their religion. They lived and breathed it. It was awesome. All the fake bravado of not giving a shit about who they had sex or when or where, all their “fuck this! And, fuck that!” mentality was lost when they spoke of music. All their irreverence for anything at all faded away into passion when music came up. Most of the bands, I had never heard of. I did recognize a Radiohead tattoo here and there. People who would never show themselves to be vulnerable (including my ex-girlfriend); people who would never step foot in a counselor’s office, never step foot in any kind of church, synagogue or temple would truly bare their souls in music. Music truly was their religion. I thought that was cool. It was through music that I saw honesty from them with no pretense.
Geeks and punks both feel alienated by life. They both feel like they don’t fit into the mainstream. They just express their alienation in different ways. Geeks internalize. Geeks withdraw into their own worlds through comic books, science fiction, computers, and anime and the made-up worlds that we go to in our minds. Punks take their alienation and they express it on the top of their lungs through loud clothes, loud music and loud mouths. Geeks and punks are on the opposite side of the same coin.
Which is the concept and idea of the film. The two romantic characters are both just so lonely for different reasons. They find a place to fit in with each other. The geek learns that she can be sexually appealing…in a nerdy way. The punk learns that she can be emotionally and intellectually appealing…in a punk kind of way.
Eh, at least I hope that comes across. We’ll see. The point is that essentially I think people or at least what I wanted from my ex was acceptance. I didn’t get it from her. But, I get it from my friends, family, God and San Francisco constantly and all the time. Works for me.
