Oi! Prick!

There's a better title for this post, but as my audience is entirely female ... it was deemed unuseable. Alas.

While working on Chapter 4, which has been a struggle this time around so far, I get to work on one of my favorite characters, which is Ben, who is based on Dan, who was my best friend from the spring of 1992 until about the end of 2000, at which point we lost touch, partially thanks to some mucking around by Jude. Why I haven't since tracked him down is a matter of some conjecture, but it is on my list of things to do this year. I don't know if he'll be as receptive to it as I hope he'll be, but that's something I'm going to find out.

Anyway, Ben is Kelly's best friend in the book, and their relationship is very closely based on our real life relationship, and the hundreds of times we used to hang out at the Diner and discuss the minutitae of our lives, and in particular every girl we met, down to the atomic level. It's fitting then that our first look at these two takes place at the Diner, where they are discussing the events of Chapter 3, and Alyssa in particular. If I based that friendship on it's real life counterpart only, it would probably be enough to be entertaining, but as usual the things I watch that I really like play an influence.

The most prominent is probably Seinfeld, as I was onto this one way early in the game. A lot of the riffs at the Diner pay homage to Jerry and George at the coffee shop. What we really used to do is a lot like what you see on that show, and I'm reflecting it back. There's also a helping of Dante and Randall in how Kelly and Ben get along, and I would say especially from Clerks 2, a movie I loved *way* more than I expected to. And there's a third influence, too.

A few years ago Colleen bought me Shaun of the Dead for X-Mas, and it is such a brilliant movie, but rather than give you a review of it here and now, I want to point something out. The relationship between Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Ed (Nick Frost) is almost a blueprint for what it was like to hang out with me and Dan. It's almost letter perfect. What's happening between Shaun and Liz at the beginning parallels the effect Dan had on two of my relationships. And the Winchester is really just a proxy for the Diner. Whether or not you like zombie movies, or even a satire of zombie movies, you should watch SotD just for this reason alone. I think Colleen, at least, had enough exposure to Dan so that some notes of recognition would register. To a lesser extent, you could also watch the same two actors in Hot Fuzz, but SotD is much more spot on.

There are a lot more Dan stories to tell in the blog, and I'll get to those in good time. Writing for his character, which he was a big fan of by the way, just made me think of these influences, and I thought it would make for a good post.

Plus, I miss the big lug.