A few years ago I attended the wedding of my good friend from junior high school through college.  The girl he was marrying someone we had both met while we were undergraduates at UC San Diego.  She was a couple of years younger than us, and the only reason I knew her was that she hung around the same circles of friends that my girlfriend hung around with.  The exact circumstances of how my friend met his girlfriend are unknown to me, although I do know that the following episode did happen:

One afternoon in the summer of 1999 I was in my bedroom using my computer after a long day of work.  I was enjoying our newly installed high-speed cable internet and trying to figure out how to use a music downloading software called “Napster”.  This was my very first experience downloading music from the internet, so I was thinking hard about which song would have the honor of being my very first pilfer.  I decided that it would be the pop/R&B song Where My Girls At? by 702.  I secretly liked this anthem to female supremacy, so I knew I had to download it covertly so no one could make fun of me.  1999 was a very pretentious era.  As soon as I hit “Search,” my friend (who was also one of my roommates) came into my room and said, “Dude, do you know Jessica Soriano?”

“Yes.  Why?”

“Oh, man, she’s cute!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!  I’ve never met her before.  I was in the Price Center with Irene Davis, and we had just finished eating lunch when Jessica came by.  She came over and started chatting with Irene and whatnot.  She and Irene are friends or something, or maybe they have a class together.  I don’t know.  Irene introduced us and Jessica said that she’s seen me around before.  I said Oh yeah? and I just played it off cool.  I was just hoping that she wasn’t turned off by my smoking.  Anyway, I know you know every person on campus.  Is she single?  What do you think she meant when she said that she’s “seen me around”?  Do you think she’s interested?  Do you have her number?  Do you talk to her?  Could you find out if she would go out with me?”

“Yeah, I know who she is.  As far as I know she’s single.  I don’t really talk to her.  I have her number, though.”

“Dude, call her and ask her if she’d go out with me. Is that creepy?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s see.”  I picked up my Panasonic 900 MHz cordless phone and dialed Jessica’s number.  “Good afternoon, this is Chris.  May I speak with Jessica, please? … Hey, how are you? … Good, good.  Do you have a minute? …  You met my friend today in the Price Center. … Yes, him … Yeah, listen.  Hypothetically speaking, if he were to ask you out on a date, would go out with him? … OK, that’s good to hear.  Thanks.  That’s perfect. … Yes. Yes.  … Thanks, Jessica.  … Bye.”

I turned to my friend and said, “You should ask her out.”

“OK, cool.  Thanks.  702?”  he asked after glancing at my computer monitor.

“Yeah,” I said confidently.

“Haha!  Good shit.  I like that song too.  Why is it a good song?”

“I don’t know.” 

They officially started dating the following year, shortly after I moved to Florida for professional school.  A few years went by and they decided to tie the knot.  My friend asked me to be a groomsman.  In the summer of 2003, I flew to Las Vegas to attend his bachelor party and their wedding.  Curiously, I was the only person from junior high school, high school and college to have been invited.  It was one of the most fun trips I had ever had, and I was honored to have been a part of the happiest moment of my friend’s life.  At the end of the reception, my friend and Jessica walked me to my rental car.  They thanked me for flying out from the east coast and being a part of their wedding.  They also assured me, because they knew that I was going through a patch of depression at that time, that everything would be OK.  I appreciated their concern, and I was thankful to have friends like them.  I asked them if they would attend my graduation next year, and they said that they would.

Seven years later I find myself planning my own wedding.  It will be on November 6, 2010.  My friend will not be there, simply because we are no longer friends.  The reason (or reasons) why we are not friends isn’t clear to me.  The last time I spoke with him was in the parking lot of the country club where their reception was held.  I never heard from him again.  Shortly after his wedding, all his contact information became invalid.  He changed his email address, phone numbers, and IM screen names.    Additionally, he made no attempt to contact me to inform me of any of these changes.  He did not attend my graduation.  It was as if he didn’t exist anymore, despite the fact that I have pictures to the contrary. 

Every time I recall this story, it makes me feel mixed emotions.  It makes me feel stupid and naïve.  It makes me feel unlikeable.  It reminds me that my perception of myself is rarely coincident with others’ perception of me.  But most importantly, this story makes me feel lonely and insignificant.  It reminds me of the one thing about me that I am embarrassed of and hate the most:  It tells me that I have very few good friends, and the ones that I do consider good friends probably don’t feel the same way.

I’ve found myself remembering my friend more frequently lately.  This is the direct result of all the wedding planning that is slowly beginning to consume the majority of my waking hours.  As such, I have been feeling anxious and unsettled.  It’s not because I’m nervous about walking down the aisle.  I think getting married is easy.  The hard part is that all the planning makes you analyze and critique all of your life’s relationships.  Sadly, I’ve realized that my relationships are poor. The first two people I asked to be groomsmen declined.  Finding people to take part in other aspects of the ceremony has been difficult and frustrating as well.  This led my fiancée to directly ask me two days ago why I didn’t have any friends.  It came out harsher than she meant it to, but it’s a valid question.  The only answer I have for that is that I’m kind of boring.  This doesn’t necessarily make me sad, but it does make me feel uneasy, unsettled, and not good.  But gas makes me feel that way, too.  Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between anxiety and diarrhea.

I was once told by an ex-girlfriend that if you have only one good friend when you die, then you’ve had a successful life.  I don’t know if she said that because she was an unlikeable loner with no social skills or because she really meant it, but I’m starting to agree with her.  No one deserves friends, and only lucky people have good ones.  I have one person who I consider to be a good friend, and I know she feels the same way.  I suppose I’m one of those lucky guys. 

I’m looking forward to the rest of my life.

There was no greater rivalry in the 1990s than that which existed between Zack Morris and A.C. Slater.  However, while Zack was universally accepted as the leader of the Saved by the Bell gang, Slater was better than Zack in virtually every aspect of life. 

Slater was the archetype jock.  He was a tri-sport athlete who was quarterback of the football team and captain of the wrestling team.  He also played varsity basketball, even though basketball and wrestling were played in the same season.  Slater was multi-talented.   Musically, he was an exceptional drummer and artistically he was a phenomenal dancer (his skills ranged from jazz to hiphop).  He was an honors student who was offered scholarships to the University of Iowa and "California University." 

His dynamic background made him the gang’s most intriguing person.  He grew up as a military child who lived in various cities around the country.  His father was a Major in the army and he had no mother.  His ethnicity was a mystery.  He wasn’t really white, and he wasn’t really black, but his eyes kind of made him look Asian.  (It was later revealed in an episode of Saved by the Bell: The College Years that his real last name was “Sanchez,” which makes him a Hispanic with a Jheri curl, I suppose.)  He was ostensibly a “cool person,” which excused his otherwise peculiar behavior.  His real name was Albert Clifford, though he was cool enough to go by the initials “A.C.”  He was able to get away with calling Zack “Preppie” and (his girlfriend) Jessie “Mama” without any discernable consequences.  He was socially accepted, despite the fact that it was the early 1990s and  he wore spandex and colorful parachute pants regularly. 

On the other hand, Zack was a talentless slacker, a troublemaker, and a poor student (although he did score an impossible "1502" on the S.A.T.).  There was nothing dynamic about his background or family life.  While Slater hung out with jocks, Zack spent most of his time with Screech.  His only redeeming value may have been that he was the only person in school to own a cell phone (which was the size of a hardcover book). 

Slater was a model high school student and an overall superior human being to Zack Morris in any and every capacity and regard.  But, despite all of that, Zack Morris was still considered the alpha dog.  He was the leader of the group, the most likable student, the most popular person in school, and he nailed the head cheerleader (Kelly).  Slater always played second fiddle to Zack.  Why didn't Slater garner the praise and recognition that he rightfully deserved?

That settles it.  A.C. Slater was a Libertarian.

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender is the most hated movie in America, and this is where America gets it wrong.

First of all, any talk of this movie being racist because of the lack of Asian actors in the leading roles is absurd.  As someone who is said to be hypersensitive about history and race, I will say that the casting for this movie was not racist.  Yes, the movie was adapted from a cartoon (Avatar: The Last Airbender) that was drawn in a Japanese style of animation, and yes, I suppose that some of the characters in the cartoon had an “Asian-look” to them.  I will also concede that Asian philosophy, martial arts, and lettering and symbols prevailed throughout the cartoon.  I will admit that there was an overall “Asian” feel to the cartoon.

However, this movie isn’t chronicling the ancient history of Earth, nor is it telling a story based on any historical period on Earth.  If any of these were the case, specific attention to race would be appropriate during casting.  Rather, this movie is adapting a cartoon that portrayed a fantasy world that is completely different from our own.  The characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender weren’t Asian, white, black, or Indian, even though they may have looked like it.  They were Air, Water, Earth, and Fire.  And just because Eastern philosophy heavily influenced the animated series, it still doesn’t mean that the characters were Asian.  People who make this argument are basically saying that aliens in science fiction stories who act “Asian” should look Asian.  This just sounds silly.  I mean, George Lucas borrowed elements from Eastern philosophy when he formulated the Jedi code, but no one cared that he didn’t cast a Japanese shogun to play Yoda.

While they could have casted Asian actors for the cartoon characters who looked Asian, they didn’t really have to because it would have made no difference to the story whatsoever (and not casting Asians doesn't take anything away from Asian people or culture).  This is not an issue of “yellowface” (in which Asian characters are being portrayed by non-Asians), as some people have said.  People who complain about “yellowface” are just saying that “Japanese people should be the Fire Nation.”  Who’s the racist now?

It’s not like there weren’t any Asians in the film, too.  There were many Earthbenders who were Asian, and since the Earth Kingdom figures prominently in the second season of Avatar, there will likely be a bunch of Asians in the sequel film (if it’s made).  The truth is that the movie was intelligently casted and could go down as one of the most diversely casted films in recent history.  The four different nations are somewhat distinct from each other, and Aang, the Avatar, is brilliantly casted with an ethnic-neutral-looking Noah Ringer.  People who complain about the casting being racist don’t realize what the fundamental theme of the original series is:  Diversity.

Other than the race issue, the movie also takes criticism for its bad acting.  People have said that the acting is horrible, the dialogue was forced, and the character interactions were unbelievable.  This is probably true, but the acting is no better or worse than other popular science-fiction /fantasy movies, including Star Wars and Star Trek.  I realize that this may be difficult for some people to accept, but they need to realize that they were likely children when they saw Star Wars for the first time.  When we’re kids, we automatically like any movie our parents take us to see in the theaters.  The reasons why we like Star Wars today are 40% substance and 60% nostalgia.  People hate The Last Airbender for the same reason why people hated The Phantom Menace:  There’s nothing to be nostalgic for.  Nostalgia trumps all reason.  By all technical accounts, Michael Bay’s 2007 film Transformers was a bad movie.  The bad acting and brainless plot was simply a vehicle to deliver big explosions and special effects.  Yet, most people who saw it loved it because they got to see Optimus Prime again, whom they haven’t seen since 1985.  If Transformers (the movie) came out in 1985, I doubt it would be as loved as it was in 2007 because it would have to compete with the cartoon.  If The Last Airbender was released in 2025, it would probably be better received.

Also keep in mind that The Last Airbender (and Star Wars) is a children’s movie, no matter how many cosplaying adults at AnimExpo refute that claim.  Yes, the acting and dialogue was bad and corny, but when Princess Yue said, “We believe in our beliefs just as much as they believe in their beliefs,” that was no more preposterous and contrived than when Obi-Wan Kenobi first said, “May the Force be with you.”  You know this to be true (as Yoda would say).

Now, to be fair to all the haters, the anime purists probably have the biggest gripe with the movie.  They feel that the movie’s plot wasn’t completely true to the story in the series.   They say that too many creative liberties were taken to condense the ten hour anime series (Season 1) into a ninety-minute motion picture.   The end result was that the movie was a failed adaption of the original series in every aspect imaginable:  The story was tweaked, it didn’t capture the mythology, the character development was nonexistent, and the overall spirit of the show was sucked out of it.  All of this they blame squarely on the writer, producer, and director, all of whom are M. Night Shyamalan.

Shyamalan was probably the last person anyone would have suspected to helm The Last Airbender.  Best known for the highly thought-provoking psycho-drama The Sixth Sense (which starred Bruce Willis and a sober Haley Joel Osment), Shyamalan’s movies have mostly been psychological thrillers about ghosts, aliens, ladies in water, happenings, and spooky villages.  As such, Shyamalan is particularly popular with college students, heroin addicts, and wiccans.  But ever since the critically-acclaimed The Sixth Sense was released eleven years ago, his movies have received increasingly negative criticism.  His style of having “twist endings” has been said to have gotten old, and he’s been labeled as a one-trick pony.  Has Shyamalan, who was considered a genius filmmaker in1999, progressively gotten worse?  Is he only good for making psycho-thrillers, and if so, is The Last Airbender his attempt to shed that stigma? 

These may be questions that Jason Hartley might want to answer.  In his book The Advanced Genius Theory, Hartley postulates that artistic geniuses will always be geniuses, even if their later works aren’t as likeable as their earlier, more popular stuff.  Using Bob Dylan and Lou Reed as prime examples, he theorizes that they are not as popular today not because their new music sucks, but because their genius has advanced beyond what most people can appreciate.   Rather than concede that artistic genius fades over time, Hartley proposes that artists become more brilliant as time goes on and that the general public aren’t as Advanced.  While mostly everyone loved The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan’s most recent films have been slammed by critics and generally audiences alike.  But did he all of a sudden start sucking, or did we all of a sudden just not understand him?  Hartley’s Theory might be true, or it might just be a way to justify liking shitty stuff. 

It might take a certain level of humility to like The Last Airbender.  So, if you didn't like the movie, the problem might be you.