The two most important things I’ve learned in college I learned from my former Hiatus editor. Aside from showing me the merited ropes of never taking oneself too seriously (and always succumbing one’s critic’s cap to the pleasures and powers of rock ‘n’ roll), Cody taught me that: 1) everything great should be shared, and 2) everything I make should have a point.
Now, he was a much better man than I. But, after years of selfishly withholding where I found the phrase ‘Straighter Than Narrow’ ‘mdash; and, when asked what that even means, overutilizing the elusive (and super sexy) ‘You wouldn’t understand’ smirk and half-eyelid thing that’s long served me so well in avoiding artistic responsibility ‘mdash; I think I’ll set down the Arrogant Bastard and dismount my ass stick to share with you, my deserving peers, the first great thing to ever enter my media-deprived little life as a secluded NorCal mountain child. Though it’s not without a grumble and a gut wince, because all those years with nothing but the salamanders to keep me company really twisted my he
art into a self-interested beast, and to this day I admittedly derive sick pleasure from keeping wonderful things to myself.
To begin, as a side note, the airplane icon to the left of ‘Straighter Than Narrow’ is the Electra, Amelia Earhart’s plane. You know, like, girl power. (Yes, I realize my middle name makes me sound like a bad stripper, but I worked it long before that Carmen bitch came along and ripped off my great-great-something, mother’s side.)
And now that I’ve built this up so fat you probably care even less than you did in the beginning, but have to keep reading or else it will all have been a huge waste, I’ll graciously unveil the watercolored, flower-powered cover of that glorious VHS I still keep hidden even from my roommates, off whose soundtrack I derived my ideal ambiguous catchphrase. Just as ‘Don’t Speak’ still makes the heartbroke tween inside me cry emo AIM tears, and first-love-era Flaming Lips still makes my intestines sausage off, the wholesome (yet pretty weird, as things for children always are) songs of Harry Nilsson, as set to the adventures of Oblio and his trusty dog Arrow, make me want to test every liquid I can get my hands on in the popsicle mold and climb every rotten tree on the mountainside. In short, feel like a kid again. It’s called ‘The Point,’ and it’s the awesomest, squirreliest (ew, I just said squirreliest), most heartwarming and probably gayest motion picture ever to avert my elusive googly-eyes, and I’m already mad I told you about it. Oh, and Ringo Starr narrates, kicking things off with a burst of nasality and the classic line, ‘Kids used to love their parents’ ‘mdash; definitely also a candidate back when I named my column.
As a reward for being so generous with my long-horded dirt on the best cartoon to which you should get high and drink hot cocoa ‘mdash; yeah, you can finally retire ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ for a winter or two ‘mdash; and because I like to think I’ve earned it after three and a half years of pretending to care about intellectually stimulating artshit, I will now allow myself a play-by-play review of my feverishly cherished favorite movie ever, something I’ve probably fantasized about since the day I switched out my poor cat for a clunky VHS case as pillowside bedpartner.
OK, so there’s this land, where all lines are over-crosshatched and colored in super sloppy with what seems to be only half the crayon box (or maybe they used those cool colored pencils where you just add water and it gets all painty; yeah, they definitely did), and where everything’s so pointy all the birds have bandages on their assholes.; everything, that is, but poor little Oblio, born with the curse of a round head and a demeanor far too pansy to bear that kind of pointlessness.
His only hope for redemption, then, becomes the pointy hat his mother (whose black hole of a mouth is not entirely scribbled in, which I suppose makes up for her body’s’ intense and entire orangeness) knits for him ‘mdash; and, of course, Arrow, ‘the greatest dog in the world!’ according to Ringo.
Back when I watched the film the first hundred times, with beer-popsicle mouth and jellies propped on our grizzly-skin ottoman, Nilsson’s voice was no voice but the voice of ‘The Point’ ‘mdash; probably what Ringo sounded like when he sang, or something. (Of course, I know now that Ringo sings exactly like he talks, and that he should never sing again, but that’s nostalgia for another day). Now that I care about music and stuff, I know that Nilsson is one of the most underrated folks of the 20th century ‘mdash; early-Lennon and McCartney’s favorite songwriter, pied piper to a million pussyfootin’ Beta Bands, subject of an excellent Walkmen cover album. I mean, come on, he’s the fucking guy who first said, ‘She put the lime in the coconut.’ But to this day, never have I seen a more worthy tribute to Nilsson’s slightly creepy, always crawling rays of woodsy yet oddly suburban sunshine, than the highly moral, gloriously ’70s script of ‘The Point.’ He even gets some bouncing-ball action and and a groovy Word Art montage drawn for him down a bottomless hole in the pointless forest, to which Oblio and Arrow are banished by the Dumbledorian king of orange pointy people.
Yeah, back to Arrow. With a tongue of the brightest magenta, a tail that origamis into a lumpy Loch Ness every time anyone says something remotely mean and a sillhouette that shape-shifts armadillo, Arrow is the first and proudest of a long line of comic-relief animal sidekicks (don’t worry, he doesn’t talk). Arrow is also a great team player, especially when it comes to good old-fashioned triangle toss ‘mdash; a fact which greatly angers the Count’s son, a varitable Malfoy with an ugly competitive streak. ‘Heyyy, wait a minute, you’re lookin’ for some reeeal trouble,’ says the conehead (KKK allusion not so subtle), turning the same crayon I’m pretty sure they used to color Arrow’s tongue. And thus, after a load more lessons in trying to accept those who look different than you, the pointless pair proceeds to banishment, into a new land colored with the other half of the box, a mushy quirk-a-thon of jelly-riffic bouncing ladies, guys with hella heads, decomposing whales and obligatory walruses.
Well shoot, I almost forgot the best part of the whole movie ‘mdash; and, coincidentally, my point. As Oblio and Arrow make their way out of town, Nilsson sings the exit music: ‘Me and my Arrow/ Straighter than narrow/ Wherever we go, everyone knows/ It’s me and my Arrow.’ And to this day, and especially’ today, at the end of a particular rambly rant, it’s always reassuring to remember Oblio’s elated realization upon returning to his newly rounded villagepeople: ‘You don’t have to have a point to have a point.’