January 7th in Posso's Prompts

What are some of the movies and television shows that have shaped you into what you are today?

Any real friend of mine would know, I am stupid with the amount of pop culture knowledge and trivia I can rattle and spew. A lot of this is due to my obsession with movies and television. I know it is borderline unhealthy at times - I have watched all sixteen seasons of E.R. multiple times in the last two years alone. I used to get drunk and yell “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” to attractive girls in the bar. (in case you had no heart growing up watching Friday Night Lights) Little do a lot of people know but I got a shower lap dance from my ex at the strip club to Flashdance’s Maniac, complete with leggings, water and my best look of awe for four minutes. It also changed the way I looked at, thought of, and appreciated a woman. I spent a number of years with Heather, and I can to this day say that I will never meet someone that appreciated all the little quirky things about me but yet could match me line for line at Happy Gilmore - probably my favorite movie in terms of the amount of times I have ever watched it.
Caddyshack is another movie that I can pretty much verbatim repeat to you - it was the first movie I ever heard ‘fuck’ in and my dad and I bonded on that. He let me watch some remotely questionable movies for a child in the 90s - Fast Times at Ridgemont High - seeing Sean Penn as the ultimate stoner slacky (the polar opposite of what I was as young teen at the time) and seeing Pheobe Cates’ boobs out of the pool was a life changer. I will never forget when my dad paused the vhs player and looked at me and said, “Zac, your mom doesn’t need to know about this one, alright?” Youngblood was another one I bonded with my dad on - in case you’re not familiar - Rob Lowe plays hockey but he’s a ‘pretty boy’ and can’t fight so Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves and the rest of the team get him to be physical - they also have a scene where Swayze takes a straight razor to Lowe’s balls and shaves him clean - that scarred me for years in terms of hazing and sports.
Mom and I bonded in other ways. She always thought I’d be in some sort of health profession. I’d come home from sports on Thursday nights and we’d watch E.R. together. We loved watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together; she was always adamant that I had a heart like Charlie’s and that if my brains didn’t get me anywhere that I’d be able to get my way through life making candy.
I remember one of my first dates with a high school fling was during Upward Bound and summer camp and we had walked down to the movie theater off of the UW Stout campus in Menomonie and Leah (the first girl I loved from Siren, Wisconsin) and I had sheepishly fondled each other in the dark while “Hero” by Chad Kroeger played at the end of Spiderman. (Christ, I’m glad I’ve changed a lot.) It also reminds me that I shared a lot of butterscotch Dilly bars that summer while overachieving in a summer class. Although, stupid, arrogant, ‘want to impress as many people as I could’ Posso also stuck his roomkey in a surge protector and whilst jokingly turning it on hit the on switch and electrocuted the holy hell out of myself. That’s a different story/day though.
Sometimes it’s been hard for me cause my imagination runs so utterly insane that I have to remember that life doesn’t end like a movie; they write movies about lives. I know that I’ll never paint anyone like one of those French girls (I only know the quote, still won’t watch Titanic) and that as much as we chant it, all of my friends won’t always fly together like The Mighty Ducks. I won’t ever have that stupid life like The Notebook - who waits years to actually tell someone they love them only to have to remind someone daily that they’re married to them (yes, The Notebook is on my favorites list, if you’re a bird, I’m a bird, fuck you for judging me.) Movies and shows have always been that escape from reality for me, that I don’t have any expectations from fictional characters and my boyishness can bond with someone that isn’t real. I mean even if I smell like beef and cheese (Elf reference for you dumdums) I can still get into some kind of Christmas spirit even after one of the rougher years of my life.