Back in the 80's, I couldn't fucking wait to get to high school.

While I was toiling away in elementary school, taking spelling tests and making shit with construction paper and Elmer's glue, high school guys were living the high life. Not only did they get to have shaggy haircuts and wear cool Alligator shirts, they got to bang 80's mall chicks. Ahhh, I remember those babes, their hair teased up several feet above their heads, decked out in tight jeans with combs that said "Tush" on them sticking out of their back pockets. Just thinking about them makes my memory water. Fuck, we need to bring that look back! Duran Duran needs to tour again, too--that should be enough incentive for them to squeeze back into their old Jordache jeans and spray those bangs to a crisp. Holla.

Everything I knew about high school in those days came from 80's comedies. I remember watching Porky's and having the same thoughts that every impressionable young boy was having; "Wow, when you get to high school, you can peek into the girl's shower room!" I wasn't so sure about sticking my manhood through the glory hole in the wall (like that one guy in the movie did), but that was purely a logistical issue. At the age of nine, I never could have reached the other side of the wall; I was hung like a roll of Certs, after all. These days, I could make it... barely. But if tried hanging out anywhere near a high school shower room nowadays, I'd get arrested. And something tells me the prison shower wouldn't be NEARLY as much fun.

No other movie impacted my perception of high school more than the 1982 classic Fast Times At Ridgemont High.  Thanks to HBO's "three movies per month" programming schedule, I've seen this movie approximately 40 trillion times. It warped me. It lied to me. And by the time I actually limped into high school some years later, it couldn't have been anything but anti-climatic. Why weren't any cute girls seducing me in their pool rooms after school? Why wasn't Mike Damone hooking me up with a good deal on Blue Oyster Cult tickets? Why wasn't I getting stoned with Spicoli before class, and ordering pizza DURING class? These are questions I never got satisfactory answers to, so I was left to assume that I was just a geek; you know, like Mark Ratner was. But then again, "Rat" bagged Stacy in the end, which is a hell of a lot more than I ever did. My sexual conquests were limited to chubby girls in the chorus. ("Oooh, Jeremy, you're SO silly!")  But I'm not complaining or anything. Nope, not at all. 

Still, you can't stay angry at a movie like Fast Times. It still holds up well more than twenty years later, and it STILL makes me want to go back to high school--even though it ended up sucking. So... if you're a fan of the film like I am, read on. If, however, you've never seen it, you have no appreciation of great cinema and you have no business reading my fucking column. Switch back to Sanka, you assholes.

STACY OR LINDA... WHO'S HOTTER?

Not as easy of a question as it seems. At first glance, Linda (played by the extremely delicious-looking Phoebe Cates) is the winner. But that's only because every guy who's ever seen the movie has the image of that red bikini permanently branded on their brains. We might not remember our mother's birthdays, but we remember that fucking bikini and the incredibly toned teenage body that was inside it. It really should be enshrined in the Smithsonian, that bikini. I'm remembering it as we speak... and now I'm fidgeting in my seat... and, um... oooh... I'll be right back.

(One minute, seven seconds later)

Okay, where was I? Oh yes. Linda was definitely more of a "classic" beauty than Stacy was, and I loved that black hair. (Always had a thing for brunettes, you know.) But for me, her impossibly good looks actually work against her. I remember girls like that; they wouldn't talk to me. If I so much as said "hello" to them, they'd point at me, laugh, make a snide remark about my bad mustache and Welcome Back, Kotter hairstyle and walk away. Well, I'm just assuming that's what they would have done. Being an insecure loner, I never actually had the balls to talk to any of them.

Stacy, however, is right up my alley. She's not classically gorgeous like Linda, but's she's almost obscenely cute. I also like the fact that she has a little bit of baby fat and a virginal quality about her. I had crushes on girls like her all through school. I'd make small talk with them, flirt with them in my charmingly awkward way, make them laugh... then, they'd have sex with a guy like Damone and cry to me about it later. That sort of thing always happens to dipshits like me.

However... Stacy has no less than TWO nude scenes in the movie, as opposed to one for Linda. Yeah, Linda's topless scene is hotter, but I'm a firm believer in "quantity over quality" (which explains the dangerously cheap liquor in my cabinet). So, with that said, the controversial choice is made;

Winner: Stacy. Oh yeah, baby.

JEFF SPICOLI VERSUS SEAN PENN

His reputation as one of our premier American actors aside, Sean Penn has always struck me as being not too far off from Spicoli. It's just like Keanu Reeves, as far as I'm concerned; I don't care how many people he suckered into believing he can act, that guy is the same person he played in the Bill & Ted movies. So it is with Penn--all he'd have to do is grow his hair long, tuck a bagel into the top of his jeans and say, "Whoa, gnarly!" and Spicoli would live again. But alas, Sean wants us to think he's an intelligent, socially conscious person. Fuck that. He really ought to go back to his roots! I mean, look at what happens when you compare Penn and Spicoli side by side;

Sean Penn: Got pissy with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for making fun of him. Wahhhhh.
Jeff Spicoli: Refuses to go to class unless he's told there's a birthday party going on.
Winner: Spicoli

Sean Penn:  Visited Iraq to supposedly show how much he "cares" for the Iraqis, becoming the "Hanoi Jane" of this generation.
Jeff Spicoli: Has a father who's a TV repairman, and thus has access to an  ULTIMATE  set of tools. It doesn't get any cooler than that.
Winner: Spicoli

Sean Penn: Won an Oscar for Mystic River.
Jeff Spicoli: Goes to All American Burger to eat, despite having no shirt on; not to mention having only "uno nickelette" in his pocket.
Winner: This is, admittedly, a close one, but Spicoli again gets the nod. Fuck the Oscars.

Sean Penn: Bitches about George W. Bush every chance he gets, even though nobody gives a fuck what he thinks.
Jeff Spicoli: Believes that he can win any surfing competition he enters, simply because his opponents are all "fags." Winner: As if there were any doubt... Spicoli.

Sean Penn: Had sex with Madonna.
Jeff Spicoli: Got to hang out with his stoner buds, played by Eric Stoltz and... uh... I forget his name, so we'll just call him "The Guy Who Played Gilbert in Revenge of the Nerds."
Winner: Okay, Sean Penn takes this one. Man oh man, would I love to FUCK Madonna. Hard.

Sean Penn: Thinks he can change the world.
Jeff Spicoli: Needs only "a frosty wave" and "a cool buzz" to be perfectly content.
Winner: Spicoli.

I rest my case.

MIKE DAMONE; EARLY 80'S LETHARIO

Damone had it going on, mother fuckers. If you needed concert tickets for any show, he'd get them for you, so close to the stage you'd practically scare the band. He also instinctively knew that if you played side two of Led Zepplin IV during a date, the woman would be powerless to keep you from scoring with her. Case in point; Damone gave that very piece of advice to Rat before his first date with Stacy, but when he finally gets her in the car he plays "Kashmir," which is off of  Physical Graffiti.  A great tune to be sure, but Rat got no nookie that night. This is hardly a coincidence, people. In Damone we trust.

Damone is also aware of this particular pearl of wisdom, which he shares with Rat during the movie; " A girl decides how far she's gonna let you go in the first five minutes." This is completely, totally, painfully true, and there's nothing that any of us can do about it. How many times have I experienced this phenomenon firsthand? Fucking plenty, that's how many. That's why I never, ever go to clubs these days; I got really tired of walking into a room and having all the women there give me a cursory glance, while clearly thinking to themselves, "Nope." It got a bit disheartening after a while. But me, I'm way too much of a wussy (read: "part wimp, part pussy") to do anything to change that. Even if I could do something, I lack the wisdom of Damone when it comes to deciphering the female brain. Now, let's just say for the sake of argument that I got a chick to agree to a date with me. Unlike Damone, I never so much as thought of taking a woman to dinner, finding out what she wants to eat and then ordering for the both of us--but Damone makes it clear that this is a "classy" move, even if you're at the drive-thru of a Burger King. And we all know Damone is a class act... 7-Eleven never would have hired him otherwise.

NOTE TO THE READERS: While the term "wussy" (or just "wuss," if you'd prefer) is commonplace these days, I had personally never heard the term before Damone used it in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  So, aside from being a stud, the guy is also a visionary.

But maybe I'm being too generous when I call him a "stud." I mean, look at what happens when Stacy seduces him in the pool room--he takes his shorts off, climbs on board and blows his load faster than you can say, "What are you people? On dope??" I can't throw stones, personally. If I had a young Jennifer Jason Leigh standing naked in front of me, I probably would have finished before I even got to the couch. That's the very reason there's never anybody else in my bed with me, aside from my cat Monte.

A FEW MORE OF FAST TIMES' LIFE LESSONS

1) Drugs will only cause you brain damage if you take them, like, every day for a month. Pretty bitchen, huh?

2) If you walk into a fast food restroom, you're likely to find the phrase "Big hairy pussy" scrawled on the mirror. It's undoubtedly there to help give you an appetite, so enjoy that damn Big Mac.

3) Disco sucks. If you don't believe me, check out the graffiti on the wall of the dugout while Stacy is losing her virginity. I should also point out that country music and rap sucks, too, but you won't learn that from the movie. Nope, that's me talking. Pay attention.

4) There only two types of "secret sauce" in the fast food kingdom; Thousand Island Dressing and the immortal ketchup/mayonnaise mix. Also, no fries should be served before their time. 

5) NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO DICE. (No shit?) 

6) If a disgruntled customer won't stop bitching about the "100% guarantee" on his meal, you're perfectly within your rights to kick 100% of his ass... or whatever percentage you deem appropriate for the occasion. For example, if a customer were just to complain that his meal was cold, you might only need to kick 65% of his ass.

7) According to Spicoli, Thomas Jefferson was once quoted as saying, "Hey! We left that England place because it was bogus. Now, if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, we'll just be bogus too." Good ol' Jefferson also had a penchant for banging his slaves, so he had plenty of mixed kids running around. But again, that's me talking. I don't think Spicoli mentions that fact during the movie, not even once. Maybe it's on a deleted scene or something.

8) The best way for a woman to master the art of oral sex is to practice it in the school cafeteria during lunch... using carrots. Remember, girls, relax those throat muscles. Bottom line? Damone rules. Spicoli rules. Sean Penn sucks.

9) Although cops may frown on this practice, it's perfectly okay to breeze through a red light. It was yellow a minute ago, I'm sure.

10) People on 'ludes should NOT drive. Driving under the influence of other illegal substances is fine, though, as long as you have fast reflexes.

Any questions?

-JTL

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