The Fourth Judge

How does your brain decide what to keep for future use and what to throw in the mental dumpster?

I’m not talking about information you actively try to hold onto like survival tips, math equations, and the speed at which your girlfriend enjoys manual stimulation. I’m talking about random esoterica that serves no purpose beyond base amusement.

Let’s take the 1989 Fred Savage vehicle The Wizard as a test case. I watched The Wizard roughly 637 times before the age of 10. I don’t need any of the information in that movie, and I definitely didn’t attempt to memorize it. What, then, has my mind decided to maintain from this wholly unnecessary experience?

The following is a list of everything I remember about The Wizard:[[MORE]]

1) There is a girl in a casino (I think the actress is a famous indie rocker now). A bad man is chasing this girl and she screams “that man touched my tit!” even though that man didn’t touch her tit. Security apprehends the man, giving her – ahem – ample time to escape.

I always felt bad for the bad guy in this scene. He may have committed his fair share of detestable acts, but he was certainly no child molester, and that’s a terrible label to unjustly hang on someone.

2) Fred Savage’s little brother has Autism or Down’s Syndrome or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Maybe it’s Asperger’s. He’s fucked up and doesn’t talk, though. I remember that.

3) Did I already say that Fred Savage is in it?

4) Oh, right, the little freak kid is really good at video games.

5) There’s a Power Glove. It is owned by someone named Lucas.

6) The movie introduced one of the Mario Bros. games to the world. I think it was Super Mario 2. The guy who introduces it at a massive video game tournament is a huge fucking dipshit/ham. I never liked hams, even as a child lacking a refined/any sense of culture.

That’s it. That’s all I remember. Was there some sort of overarching narrative? Probably. Were there other actors and actresses involved? One can only assume. Why, then, are these the things that come to mind when I think of The Wizard, a film which I have seen more times than I care to think about? What is my brain trying to tell me?

Do you think smoking weed every day for the past 10 years might have something to do with it?

The world may never know, so here’s a truly bizarre music video for a shitty 80s song that was on the soundtrack. I guess that’s another thing I remember about this movie.

Oh yeah! The little kid says “California” a lot and at one point winds up in a giant dinosaur statue in the desert.

Come to think of it, I remember quite a bit about The Wizard. It’s weird that I thought I didn’t. The weed’s still to blame, I’m sure.

In second grade I tied my own shoe laces together and pretended that somebody else had done it to me when I wasn’t looking. This happened at the end of a school day and I escalated the charade by hopping down the street to a play date with a friend who lived a block away.

I fell down a few times on the way there and scraped my knees, bloodying them. When I got to my friend’s house I told his mom the embarrassing “truth” that somebody had tied my shoelaces together when I wasn’t looking.

What was she thinking while she mended my wounds? Was she embarrassed that her son’s best friend was too stupid too notice somebody else tying his shoe laces together? Was she worried that someone brain dead enough to attempt to walk home without untying the shoe laces would lead her son down a path of ruin?

She should have been. If that were my son’s friend I would have forbidden him from ever seeing him again.

I think about this story all the time because it doesn’t make any goddamn sense. What was I trying to accomplish? Was I so desperate to be involved in zany, mad cap hijinx that I was willing to sacrifice my dignity in the process? Was I trying to lower my parents’ expectations for my future?

The only thing I can come up with is that sometimes people do things for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that they think of them. Take, for example, this guy licking his shoes in a New York City subway car.

I need a palette cleanser after all this soul-searching. Here’s an article about a German insurance company that rewarded its salesmen with a giant, godless orgy in Budapest.

Here’s one about a couple of parents who went to their kids’ school and beat up a bunch of students, a handful of teachers, and the principal. You may be shocked to learn that this happened in Detroit, of all places.

Ok, I feel a lot better now. See you kids next week.