The Spinal Tap Dilemma

As an avid music lover and fan of Christopher Guest movies, my friend, Jim, was shocked when he learned I’d never seen, “This is Spinal Tap.” Shocked, I tell you. Like I just confessed to barbequing babies or something. “How could you miss it?” he asked over the phone (that is, after he retrieved his jaw from the ground). “It’s the quintessential mockumentary.” And before I could catch my breath to respond, I opened my front door to find a wrapped copy of the movie on my front porch.

Who knew men could move so fast?

Now I was under pressure. I couldn’t just watch the movie, I had to love it. I had to share the universal consensus that this was one of the funniest films ever to hit the silver screen. To be honest, the glimpses caught on cable TV never grabbed my attention, but maybe I wasn’t giving the movie a fair shake. Because any Christopher Guest fan knows that his movies are all about the dialogue. Sharp. Witty. Clever. Ripe with double entendres and innuendos. How attentive could I be while channel surfing between “Sex and the City” and “The Twilight Zone?” (Hey, there's an idea for a new show: "Sex in the Twilight Zone.) Plus, Jim has a great sense of humor. If he was delivering “This is Spinal Tap” with accolades and blessings, there had to be something to it.

So one night, after weeks of ignoring the DVD case on my counter, I finally popped the CD in my player. It had been a busy day at the office and my hour-long commute left me in a sour mood, but I had to get this over with. I had to watch “This is Spinal Tap.” Not only that…gulp…I had to love it.

Except I didn’t. Oh, the first twenty minutes were funny enough. And the ending made me laugh, but really, I was bored and even dozed off for a minute or two. Well, at least now I could say that I’d seen the darned movie and cross it off my list: change the car oil. Check. Give the dog a flea bath: Check. Watch “This is Spinal Tap.” Ah, blessed relief. Check.

So the movie went back in its DVD case and back on the kitchen counter, where it would stay until I saw Jim for our next sushi date. Except my Spinal Tap dilemma wasn’t over. Now, I found myself under a new kind of pressure. Every time I saw the case, I wondered: why hadn’t I liked it? I felt like I failed some sort of pop culture litmus test. After all, I love everything else by Christopher Guest. I respect Jim’s opinion. Adore irony, appreciate wit. What was wrong with me? Why, oh why, had I failed the Spinal Tap test?

This movie was starting to stalk me.

After a week of enduring the accusing presence of the DVD case, one Saturday afternoon I couldn’t take it any longer: I popped the CD back in the player. I simply had to know why I didn’t like Spinal Tap. Not that I’m anal retentive or anything. Okay, maybe a little.

But just twenty minutes into the movie came a scene I didn’t recognize. Nor the one that followed. Or the one after that. And so on and so on. None of this was looking familiar. And suddenly, the light bulbs flashed over my head and glory alleluia, I experienced the epiphany I’d been waiting for. Now I knew why I didn’t like, “This is Spinal Tap.”

Because I never saw it. I hadn’t just “dozed off for a minute or two,” like I thought. I’d been in a downright coma. Flatlined. Pushed the daisies. Ceased To Be. I had slept through the entire movie.

Which reminds me of a line from the film, one of many I laughed at when I managed to stay awake the second time around. A music critic asks, “'What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap, and couldn't He have rested on that day too?'"

Hey, rest is over-rated. And trust me, I should know.