| Check out our blog the monitor |
| Sign me up to receive the free weekly |
 |
| _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
| OUR OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY |
Van Wilder: party liaison
The boring truth about Vance
Wilder, Jr.
by Hans Kneesenboom-Zedeysie
Friday, February 1, 2008
Even as a work of (auto)biographical fiction, Van
Wilder: party liaison is – there’s no nice way to say this – gilding the türd.
For two years, I attended Coolidge College with Van Wilder. He studied
Advanced Chemistry, and worked all the hours Richard Dawkins sends
(his words, not mine!). He was a weirdo, a bit chubby, and hopelessly
enthused by work no-one else showed the slightest inclination to
understand – tutors included. He wore shorts in winter. He was, in every
conceivable way, nothing like that Australian kid who ended up in the
papers recently.
In fact Coolidge College – named for the fervent Calvinist Mr. Frigidaire
Coolidge – was as natural a home as Van could have found, outside of
the maternal nest where, rumour has it, his mother was still spanking him
when he turned 18.
Vance ‘Van’ Wilder* – often called VW, because, like many scientists, he
looked and behaved as though he spent his entire life under a stone –
was a bona fide nerd, a terrible desperado and the world’s worst pick-up
‘artist’. (He was the type who referred constantly to ‘intercourse’ –
you’ve seen A Beautiful Mind? – and got himself slapped a lot.)
We picked on him, naturally. In fact, in a move which, in reflective
maturity, I now acknowledge was a little mean, I named one of my
earliest research papers after him: Pavlov’s Urinal (or, I can make Vance
pee on command). Harsh, maybe; but I tell you the research was
hysterical.
To justify his 7 years at Coolidge (‘carry the 2…’) VW used to say
‘Remember my credo: don’t be a fool, stay in school.’ If that didn’t fly –
or if the listener confused it with one of our other college slogans: ‘Don’t
be a fool: wrap your tool’ – he had a standard back-up: ‘College doesn’t
get you ready for life: it IS life.’
For ‘the better part of a decade’ (depending on your definition of
‘better’), Vance ‘dabbled’ by auditing everyone else’s courses, over and
above coming first in all his own classes. When challenged one day as to
how exactly he got a 91% average, he responded that he had been ill
and had missed two of the 8 papers.
Doesn’t sound familiar, does it? Well it wouldn’t. In what screen critics
now call The Reverse Charlie Wilson Process (a term that doesn’t mean
what the Congressman might have hoped…), an awful lot of spice has
been added to VW’s hopelessly dweebish varsity story, in order to make
it palatable.
‘You got an A in my Freshman Economics** class,’ Professor MacDougall
barks at him. (No shit. That and every other class.) ‘You should’ve
graduated twice by now!’
Well, he DID. Yeah, twice. He just didn’t tell anyone. He even stole his
records from the school office, so no-one would be able to prove he’d
ever got the requisite grades. So terrified was he of confronting the
world outside, he was willing to look like an idiot instead.
I assure you, the only time VW ever missed a class was when a vengeful
ex conspired to put Colon Blow in his protein shake. Even then he made
it for the Q&A session at the end, and had the class reconvened as a
seminar a fortnight later. (That Canine Scrotum question in the anatomy
exam was no fluke. Vance was such an obsessive student that he
actually used his dog to swot up for his biology papers.)
As for the Lambda Omega Omega (ΛΩΩ) maths geek party, the one that
made him famous… Vance was President of that fraternity. But he laid off
all the stigma (not to be confused with Σ) onto Richard ‘ΔΙΚ’ Bagg. They
never much liked each other after that locker room scandal, and I guess
VW just figured that strolling about in a t-shirt marked ‘got dik?’ wasn’t
really how he wanted to be recorded for posterity. Rest assured, though,
the Bagg of the movie is the Wilder of reality, the kind of guy who really
did used to hold his whisky tumbler on a hanky.
Why has this story never been told? Well, ‘because best GPA doesn’t get
you laid.’
Here are some real truths about VW, for what they’re worth.
The boring truth about Vance
Wilder, Jr.
by Hans Kneesenboom-Zedeysie
Friday, February 1, 2008
Even as a work of (auto)biographical fiction, Van
Wilder: party liaison is – there’s no nice way to say this – gilding the türd.
For two years, I attended Coolidge College with Van Wilder. He studied
Advanced Chemistry, and worked all the hours Richard Dawkins sends
(his words, not mine!). He was a weirdo, a bit chubby, and hopelessly
enthused by work no-one else showed the slightest inclination to
understand – tutors included. He wore shorts in winter. He was, in every
conceivable way, nothing like that Australian kid who ended up in the
papers recently.
In fact Coolidge College – named for the fervent Calvinist Mr. Frigidaire
Coolidge – was as natural a home as Van could have found, outside of
the maternal nest where, rumour has it, his mother was still spanking him
when he turned 18.
Vance ‘Van’ Wilder* – often called VW, because, like many scientists, he
looked and behaved as though he spent his entire life under a stone –
was a bona fide nerd, a terrible desperado and the world’s worst pick-up
‘artist’. (He was the type who referred constantly to ‘intercourse’ –
you’ve seen A Beautiful Mind? – and got himself slapped a lot.)
We picked on him, naturally. In fact, in a move which, in reflective
maturity, I now acknowledge was a little mean, I named one of my
earliest research papers after him: Pavlov’s Urinal (or, I can make Vance
pee on command). Harsh, maybe; but I tell you the research was
hysterical.
To justify his 7 years at Coolidge (‘carry the 2…’) VW used to say
‘Remember my credo: don’t be a fool, stay in school.’ If that didn’t fly –
or if the listener confused it with one of our other college slogans: ‘Don’t
be a fool: wrap your tool’ – he had a standard back-up: ‘College doesn’t
get you ready for life: it IS life.’
For ‘the better part of a decade’ (depending on your definition of
‘better’), Vance ‘dabbled’ by auditing everyone else’s courses, over and
above coming first in all his own classes. When challenged one day as to
how exactly he got a 91% average, he responded that he had been ill
and had missed two of the 8 papers.
Doesn’t sound familiar, does it? Well it wouldn’t. In what screen critics
now call The Reverse Charlie Wilson Process (a term that doesn’t mean
what the Congressman might have hoped…), an awful lot of spice has
been added to VW’s hopelessly dweebish varsity story, in order to make
it palatable.
‘You got an A in my Freshman Economics** class,’ Professor MacDougall
barks at him. (No shit. That and every other class.) ‘You should’ve
graduated twice by now!’
Well, he DID. Yeah, twice. He just didn’t tell anyone. He even stole his
records from the school office, so no-one would be able to prove he’d
ever got the requisite grades. So terrified was he of confronting the
world outside, he was willing to look like an idiot instead.
I assure you, the only time VW ever missed a class was when a vengeful
ex conspired to put Colon Blow in his protein shake. Even then he made
it for the Q&A session at the end, and had the class reconvened as a
seminar a fortnight later. (That Canine Scrotum question in the anatomy
exam was no fluke. Vance was such an obsessive student that he
actually used his dog to swot up for his biology papers.)
As for the Lambda Omega Omega (ΛΩΩ) maths geek party, the one that
made him famous… Vance was President of that fraternity. But he laid off
all the stigma (not to be confused with Σ) onto Richard ‘ΔΙΚ’ Bagg. They
never much liked each other after that locker room scandal, and I guess
VW just figured that strolling about in a t-shirt marked ‘got dik?’ wasn’t
really how he wanted to be recorded for posterity. Rest assured, though,
the Bagg of the movie is the Wilder of reality, the kind of guy who really
did used to hold his whisky tumbler on a hanky.
Why has this story never been told? Well, ‘because best GPA doesn’t get
you laid.’
Here are some real truths about VW, for what they’re worth.
| CONTACT THE LIZARD |
| Updated at least 26½ times a day |
| Kultur Kolüm |
Hans Kneesenboom-Zedeysie is Professor of Comparative Literatures at the
Universiteit van Ghwentse Fanie
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Last week:
Universiteit van Ghwentse Fanie
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Last week:
He actually did have a chamber-maid called Suk Mi. (These rich
kids are all the same.) Ditto the leopard-print golf buggy.
His girlfriend, Gwen Pacman Pearson, did indeed go about with no
pants on: but it was solely because she had an allergy to cotton.
And his justification for dating her was even more prosaic than
that: ‘Miss Pac-man’s special. She’s fun, she’s cute… she
swallows.’
The strip club owner definitely did turn up, demanding the return
of his best girls. Now, as it happens, Topless Tutors had been my
project – it was part of my research into what I was calling
‘Player Theory’, and a very handy money-spinner, too – but on
this occasion I was happy to let VW take the credit.
The Sue Me Screw Me party – that actually happened, but the
name came later. Originally billed just as the Screw Me party, it
was such a flop the law students took him to court to get their
money back.
He did employ the tranny as his PA, and only realised later, in
circumstances I cannot discuss here, but at which I was absolute
NOT present (regardless of whatever you’ve heard). Suffice to
say, if you’ve seen Trainspotting…
kids are all the same.) Ditto the leopard-print golf buggy.
His girlfriend, Gwen Pacman Pearson, did indeed go about with no
pants on: but it was solely because she had an allergy to cotton.
And his justification for dating her was even more prosaic than
that: ‘Miss Pac-man’s special. She’s fun, she’s cute… she
swallows.’
The strip club owner definitely did turn up, demanding the return
of his best girls. Now, as it happens, Topless Tutors had been my
project – it was part of my research into what I was calling
‘Player Theory’, and a very handy money-spinner, too – but on
this occasion I was happy to let VW take the credit.
The Sue Me Screw Me party – that actually happened, but the
name came later. Originally billed just as the Screw Me party, it
was such a flop the law students took him to court to get their
money back.
He did employ the tranny as his PA, and only realised later, in
circumstances I cannot discuss here, but at which I was absolute
NOT present (regardless of whatever you’ve heard). Suffice to
say, if you’ve seen Trainspotting…
Above all, you should know that Vance had absolutely no imagination,
and was forever borrowing his millionaire father’s catch phrases, among
them ‘Write that down’ and, disconcertingly, ‘Who’s your daddy?’
This is all the more ironic given his subsequent fame for ad hoc pseudo-
insights. For example, ‘You can’t treat every situation as a life or death
matter, cos you’ll die a lot of times’. (You can find similar bunkum in
Todd Haynes’ new Bob Dylan biopic: I’m not all there.)
Another VW favourite ran, ‘You shouldn’t take life too seriously: you’ll
never get out alive’. Which would’ve been super, except that he
pinched it from the former leader writer on The Liberator, one Ms
Pacman.)
His reputation is especially bemusing given the number of times he
crashed and burned. Not just with the ladies, either. One famous
example went thus:
VW – ‘BlahblahblahI’msogreatblahblah… Write that down.’
Victim – ‘I don’t have a pencil’
VW – ‘Er, well, remember that, then.’
Of course, like any half-intelligent plagiarist (a fair assessment, I feel!)
Vance was selective in his ‘borrowings’. On one occasion his father,
Vance Sr,, famously found little VW in the closet, wearing a dress, and
exclaimed ‘Sweet Joseph, my son’s a fairy!’ Oddly, Vance Jr. never
found a use for that one.
The only line that was definitively his was this: ‘You need to realise a
poor investment, and cut your losses’. That ‘bong’, for instance.
Actually, in VW’s defence, the thing that worried him most about that
little incident was that he’d found out about it from the front-page of
The Liberator. ‘I read the damn article all right, but don’t tell anyone;
because if word gets out that I read it will wreck my reputation.’
The true hero of VW’s time at Coolidge (‘true’ in every sense) was Taj
Mahal ‘Putting the bang in Banglapur’ Badalandabad.*** So dedicated
was Taj to his role as comedic side-kick that he actually had a sitar-
effect musical device implanted into each of his heels so there would
be stereotypical Indian tunes – in stereo – wherever he walked). But
Taj’s real talent was as a wordsmith.
By way of evidence of his skill, here is Taj riffing a list of metaphors for
‘the great American art of muff diving,
To smack clam,
Munch rug,
Dine at just one American pink taco stand,
Park the porpoise,
Take it through the carwash,
Get it waxed,
… and air dry that shit.’
And, lest you think his expertise limited to matters sexual, here he is
reciting Clausewitz from memory: ‘A good soldier does not leave his
commander just because he lies wounded, arms torn off at the
sockets, intestines spilling out onto the mud, picked at by the birds…’
A faithful friend, undoubtedly; but Taj was, of course, a rented script-
writer, paid to make VW look cool (or, as they used to say ‘to put the
cool back into Coolidge’). And that’s just while Van was at Coolidge, let
alone before they drafted in a whole team to write the movie.
Mein Gott, did it work, though! And for the most part it didn’t do Taj
any harm, either.**** I remember seeing him in the 8th realm of bliss
at the roller-boogie party, sweating his little socks off at the thought
of Naomi (‘I moan’ backwards)’s sacred lotus patch…
A couple more things to pin down, in the interests of historical veracity.
VW was fat. Yep, like Milty Mingleton. ‘I want you all over that ball, like
a fat kid on a cupcake,’ he says to the basketball squad. Well, he
should know.
And because he was fat, he wasn’t exactly front of the queue when it
came to Pacman Pearson (I think I don’t need to say who was, ja?
Furchtbar, I tapped that! ‘I also had a very undeniable skill I got to
tap’: but that’s another story.)
I think it must have been the bikini-clad judges at the charity diving
event that won Vance his reputation. But I know for a fact that they
were all ex-squeezes, and he had dirt on all of them. I’ve seen some of
the pictures; to be honest, they have my sympathy. You can ignore
the charity part, too: benevolent agenda? Donner und Blitzen! That
bastard cleaned up.
Hell, I’m not saying it’s all lies. The bus full of vomiting circus midgets:
THAT happened. Sure. And the dog-porn thing, too. Wilder was a
deviant, and no mistake. Same goes for playing foosball with the frat
boy’s glass eye. (Though I’m a big enough man to admit that was
pretty funny.)
‘Sometimes you’ve gotta let your heart lead you, even if it’s
somewhere you know you’re not supposed to go.’ Yeah, like Professor
MacDougall’s blind daughter. No wonder the old man hated him.
Those are the real reasons he was being thrown out. Those and
because some student reporter discovered that he had already
graduated twice. THEN he put up the big noble fight, and the Patch
Adams court-room scene, and they did the last-minute cramming
montage, and all that. But it wasn’t exactly the way they show it in
the movie.
Having finally responded to the subtle hints from his peers, Van Wilder
switched from science to Literature before graduating – for the third
time. He is now a professor at Amsterdam (Comparative Literatures).
We both interviewed for the job, and while we were sitting in the
waiting room VW cracked one of his last-minute witticisms:
‘Worrying is like a rocking chair. Gives you something to do, but it
doesn’t get you anywhere.’
Yeah, well, the same goes for self-love, Van.
Write that down.
--
* Pronounced ‘Fun Vilder’ (ironically enough) in my home-country. His
sister we used to call Fun Wildebeest, for reasons which – because I
am a gentleman – will remain off the record.
** I tell you, I got the A in Freshman economics!
*** Joint record holder for Most ‘A’s in a Name, along with my friend
David Ratnanayagam.
**** Though there was one occasion on which Taj realised he had
some leverage over Vance, and threatened to spill the beans on the
script-writing issue. Vance waited until Taj was oiling himself up with
Naomi, and then set him on fire and threw him out of the first-floor
window.
and was forever borrowing his millionaire father’s catch phrases, among
them ‘Write that down’ and, disconcertingly, ‘Who’s your daddy?’
This is all the more ironic given his subsequent fame for ad hoc pseudo-
insights. For example, ‘You can’t treat every situation as a life or death
matter, cos you’ll die a lot of times’. (You can find similar bunkum in
Todd Haynes’ new Bob Dylan biopic: I’m not all there.)
Another VW favourite ran, ‘You shouldn’t take life too seriously: you’ll
never get out alive’. Which would’ve been super, except that he
pinched it from the former leader writer on The Liberator, one Ms
Pacman.)
His reputation is especially bemusing given the number of times he
crashed and burned. Not just with the ladies, either. One famous
example went thus:
VW – ‘BlahblahblahI’msogreatblahblah… Write that down.’
Victim – ‘I don’t have a pencil’
VW – ‘Er, well, remember that, then.’
Of course, like any half-intelligent plagiarist (a fair assessment, I feel!)
Vance was selective in his ‘borrowings’. On one occasion his father,
Vance Sr,, famously found little VW in the closet, wearing a dress, and
exclaimed ‘Sweet Joseph, my son’s a fairy!’ Oddly, Vance Jr. never
found a use for that one.
The only line that was definitively his was this: ‘You need to realise a
poor investment, and cut your losses’. That ‘bong’, for instance.
Actually, in VW’s defence, the thing that worried him most about that
little incident was that he’d found out about it from the front-page of
The Liberator. ‘I read the damn article all right, but don’t tell anyone;
because if word gets out that I read it will wreck my reputation.’
The true hero of VW’s time at Coolidge (‘true’ in every sense) was Taj
Mahal ‘Putting the bang in Banglapur’ Badalandabad.*** So dedicated
was Taj to his role as comedic side-kick that he actually had a sitar-
effect musical device implanted into each of his heels so there would
be stereotypical Indian tunes – in stereo – wherever he walked). But
Taj’s real talent was as a wordsmith.
By way of evidence of his skill, here is Taj riffing a list of metaphors for
‘the great American art of muff diving,
To smack clam,
Munch rug,
Dine at just one American pink taco stand,
Park the porpoise,
Take it through the carwash,
Get it waxed,
… and air dry that shit.’
And, lest you think his expertise limited to matters sexual, here he is
reciting Clausewitz from memory: ‘A good soldier does not leave his
commander just because he lies wounded, arms torn off at the
sockets, intestines spilling out onto the mud, picked at by the birds…’
A faithful friend, undoubtedly; but Taj was, of course, a rented script-
writer, paid to make VW look cool (or, as they used to say ‘to put the
cool back into Coolidge’). And that’s just while Van was at Coolidge, let
alone before they drafted in a whole team to write the movie.
Mein Gott, did it work, though! And for the most part it didn’t do Taj
any harm, either.**** I remember seeing him in the 8th realm of bliss
at the roller-boogie party, sweating his little socks off at the thought
of Naomi (‘I moan’ backwards)’s sacred lotus patch…
A couple more things to pin down, in the interests of historical veracity.
VW was fat. Yep, like Milty Mingleton. ‘I want you all over that ball, like
a fat kid on a cupcake,’ he says to the basketball squad. Well, he
should know.
And because he was fat, he wasn’t exactly front of the queue when it
came to Pacman Pearson (I think I don’t need to say who was, ja?
Furchtbar, I tapped that! ‘I also had a very undeniable skill I got to
tap’: but that’s another story.)
I think it must have been the bikini-clad judges at the charity diving
event that won Vance his reputation. But I know for a fact that they
were all ex-squeezes, and he had dirt on all of them. I’ve seen some of
the pictures; to be honest, they have my sympathy. You can ignore
the charity part, too: benevolent agenda? Donner und Blitzen! That
bastard cleaned up.
Hell, I’m not saying it’s all lies. The bus full of vomiting circus midgets:
THAT happened. Sure. And the dog-porn thing, too. Wilder was a
deviant, and no mistake. Same goes for playing foosball with the frat
boy’s glass eye. (Though I’m a big enough man to admit that was
pretty funny.)
‘Sometimes you’ve gotta let your heart lead you, even if it’s
somewhere you know you’re not supposed to go.’ Yeah, like Professor
MacDougall’s blind daughter. No wonder the old man hated him.
Those are the real reasons he was being thrown out. Those and
because some student reporter discovered that he had already
graduated twice. THEN he put up the big noble fight, and the Patch
Adams court-room scene, and they did the last-minute cramming
montage, and all that. But it wasn’t exactly the way they show it in
the movie.
Having finally responded to the subtle hints from his peers, Van Wilder
switched from science to Literature before graduating – for the third
time. He is now a professor at Amsterdam (Comparative Literatures).
We both interviewed for the job, and while we were sitting in the
waiting room VW cracked one of his last-minute witticisms:
‘Worrying is like a rocking chair. Gives you something to do, but it
doesn’t get you anywhere.’
Yeah, well, the same goes for self-love, Van.
Write that down.
--
* Pronounced ‘Fun Vilder’ (ironically enough) in my home-country. His
sister we used to call Fun Wildebeest, for reasons which – because I
am a gentleman – will remain off the record.
** I tell you, I got the A in Freshman economics!
*** Joint record holder for Most ‘A’s in a Name, along with my friend
David Ratnanayagam.
**** Though there was one occasion on which Taj realised he had
some leverage over Vance, and threatened to spill the beans on the
script-writing issue. Vance waited until Taj was oiling himself up with
Naomi, and then set him on fire and threw him out of the first-floor
window.