I want to start off with a disclaimer. It should be made abundantly clear that I’m not all that smart. In this blog, I’ll mention some things that sound like I have a higher opinion of myself (and my brain) than I really do. I don’t want to come across as arrogant, because I hate braggarts. But I have to balance that distaste with the advice of a counselor I spoke with a few years back. Charlie encouraged me to take pride in my abilities, and, well, I guess my brain is one of the things I’m supposed to be proud of. So weird for someone who’s always had self-esteem issues to be told that there was something to be proud of sitting right there. Anyway, had to explain where I’m coming from. (Also, I can’t recommend having someone to talk to when everything gets to be too much. Mental health is a priority, people.) Okay, then.
I used to get pulled from my 1st grade classroom, taken out to the hallway, and handed a book. Some adult would point to a passage, and I’d read it. I didn’t understand why, until it was explained to me that these were books for much older kids, and everyone was just really impressed with my reading and comprehension, seeing as I was six years old and reading from high school textbooks. I didn’t see what the big deal was, as my mom (who would become a successful author some years later, but who also served as a reading instructor in our school system) had taught me to read, so…yay? I just figured that’s how things were. Reading was essential, but nothing special. Then, in junior high (I’m old enough that we didn’t have a middle school, we instead attended a stand-alone school for grades 7-8) I was enrolled in an afterschool aeronautics class at a local university that I suppose was for “gifted” kids. It was weird; I was in amongst a bunch of presumably above-average students, and yet still ran into some of the same bullying and social shunning as I tended to encounter in junior high.
Okay, let me address that. I say “bullying” because that’s pretty much what it was, but I very rarely ever dealt with actual physical abuse or anything. The occasional shoving, being made to arm wrestle the other puny kid, so on…no biggie. No harm, no foul. I was tall and scrawny. My friends were the standard group of misfits, band geeks, D&D kids, Star Trek nerds. Mostly we just absorbed all the derision and name-calling and shrugged it off. I think that’s why running into the same sort of treatment in these “advanced placement” classes sort of hurt…I had expected like-minded kids who read X-Men comics and had read The Lord of the Rings over and over. And maybe they all did, too. Maybe I was simply the kid from the hick town, maybe I just looked funny.
And oh, did I. Good Gods. Photographic evidence to come, and it’s…something.
Anyway, I wasn’t miserable, really. I had a decent home life, I had friends, I had a brother and plenty of food and shelter and all that. And, of course, I was an honor roll student…until I wasn’t. In years since, I have learned about a condition called dyscalculia, which is basically sort of like dyslexia, but with numbers. Turns out I have a touch of that, which made it really frustrating when I increasingly found myself handed a test with a C+ on it (or worse!) It didn’t make any sense. I’d done the calculations, I did the proofs, but then somehow the answer was wrong. I’d re-do the problem and get a different answer. It didn’t make sense. I chalked it up to stress, to the pressure I was putting on myself, which, ironically can trigger or exacerbate dyscalculia. Anyway, long story short, don’t expect a career designing spacecraft and airframes if you can’t accurately calculate simple things lie lift and drag. By the summer of 1985, I was nearing a point of absolute frustration. And then a movie absolutely changed my life.
Real Genius premiered in August of 1985, right in the middle of a great renaissance, an enlightened era of filmmaking where suddenly, finally, geeks were being celebrated. The year before, Revenge of the Nerds had debuted to great box office success. No, it was not a technically accurate depiction of college life, and yes, the nerd stereotypes were…let’s just say they were “of the time.” But the film’s greatest legacy was proving that there was an audience for geek comedy, and so Hollywood pounced. In August of 1985, the fruit was ripe for the picking. Weird Science premiered on August 2nd, followed five days later by Real Genius, and then the underrated My Science Project on the 9th. I loved them all. And I felt seen, and I started to realize that maybe there was nothing weird (pardon the pun) about being a smarter-than average geek. But Real Genius…that was the game changer.
I have read so many accounts by people who attended Cal Tech and other similar universities in the 80’s who claim that the campus culture wasn’t that far off from the environment represented by the fictional Pacific Tech. I can’t speak to the veracity of those claims. But what I can say is that those characters felt more “real” (MORE TITLE-SPECIFIC PUNS!) than the ones portrayed in Revenge of the Nerds. And none more so than Mitch and Chris. Oh, Chris Knight. He was the One. He was the character who taught me (and Mitch, in the film) that it was more than okay to be a weird little smart person. But, at the same time, you didn’t have to be stuffy. You could be whoever you wanted to be, and above all, you could not stress so much. You could blow off class when you needed to. You could, and SHOULD, take time to shut the brain down and just “be.” But most importantly, by the old gods and the new, you should have FUN. Because if you aren’t having fun, what the hell is the point of any of this? Val Kilmer’s Chris Knight flipped a switch in me. He unlocked something. I began developing my now-trademark attitude, my snark, and, yes, my swagger. You have to have a little swagger. Years later, another certified cinematic genius, Tony Stark, would advise the equally brilliant Bruce Banner “You’re tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut.” I maintain that Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony owes a lot to Val Kilmer’s Chris. (Seeing the two actors together in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang was such a goddam treat.)
In my own personal life, I began to relax, while also gaining the confidence to do things I never would have even considered in the years prior to Real Genius. I finally took up the sport I’d quietly enjoyed watching, and made trips to the local ice rink to begin my (amateur) hockey career, a sport I play to this day, even as I approach 55 years on this rock. I was so scrawny that an older cousin of mine confided her concerns to my mom: “He’s going to get KILLED!” (Cousin Theresa, look at me! I made it! Hahahaha!) My hair grew out, my wardrobe changed. Dead Kennedys found their way into my playlist alongside Rush and Credence Clearwater Revival. I auditioned for and won the lead in a couple of school plays. I quit show choir, but stayed in band (and found I absolutely LOEVD the Dixieland and jazz ensembles.) I still played D&D, and watched Star Trek reruns every afternoon. I gradually found that yes, I was a geek, a strange kid with a weird sense of humor, and that was just fine…but I was also one who later realized how much he loved surfing. And look, I’m not saying all of that, the gradual coming out of my shell, hosting a radio morning show that had me rubbing elbows with rock stars and adult film performers, all of it, I’m not saying none of that would have happened if it hadn’t been for Val Kilmer’s performance in real Genius…but boy, a part of me really doubts that it would have happened quite like this.
I heard about Val’s passing last evening as I went to bed. How I wish I could have told him in person how much that one role meant to a skinny kid from Mt. Vernon, Indiana. I loved most of his performances, of course…the hilarious fare like Top Secret, his legendary depiction of Doc Holliday, Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Gay Perry, Jim Morrison, that weird Island of Dr. Moreau film…but Chris Knight is the one. The singular character in the singular film that had the greatest impact on my life. I absolutely must thank you, Val. After all, it’s a moral imperative.
I’m submitting a couple of photos here as visual evidence of my transformation, by the way. The first photo (thanks to Patti Liberti Green for unearthing this horrific gem) was me doing some sort of band or choir shoot from the 1984-85 school year. Lots to unpack there. The tux…the ill-fitting shirt and bowtie…the teeth, wrapped in bands of steel…the greasy hair in a traditional Amish bowl cut (I am not Amish)…the Smeagol grip on the sheet music. The eyes looking up and away…afraid of the camera, kid? It’s like the photographer said “fuck it. This will do.” Oof.
And then, there is the photo…my yearbook photo, actually…for my junior year, 1986-87. WHO IS THIS KID?!? The hair was on its way to a full hockey mullet. The black t-shirt and unbuttoned flannel shirt were grunge before there was such a term. The lean. The SMIRK. The looking right into the camera as if to ask “What’s up?” And make no mistake: the kid in the second photo still got called a geek and a faggot. He still sat with the D&D and Marvel Comics crew (it still boggles my mind how far we’ve come as a society where the Lord of the Rings movies endure to this day, and the Marvel cinematic franchise has earned over 31 billion worldwide) but here’s the thing about this kid, the smirking little shit in photo 2…he just didn’t GIVE a shit. Well, that’s disingenuous. He did give a shit, but not as much of one. He’d learned to shrug things off a little easier.
I’ll wrap with a couple of recent photos, just for good measure. See, I’m now a father of two smart kids, including a student at Indiana Tech (slightly more inland than Pacific Tech) and I’m still having fun on the ice…and in life. May everyone be so lucky. Thanks again, Val.
Turner Watson 
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