Strange Scott Baio references at 3 AM...Huh?

Am I some kind of loser for liking that scene in "Can't Hardly Wait" where "Preston" runs into Jenna Elfman while he's trying to call Barry Manilow at 2 am? I love that scene. So what's the relevance? Well, Felicia has us sitting in our hotel room watching that very scene right now and I'm not embarrassed to say that I totally dig this movie. Especially the Scott Baio reference, how hilarious is that? Hilarious and insightful...

I adore how choked up Elfman gets telling a simple, sweet story from back in high school, from when she was so young and dramatic, when she was as emotionally desperate and as damaged as any of us are at that age. How nothing worked out exactly as she had planned. I love it. The fact that it orbits around Scott Baio makes it about ten times better. We've all got our stories like that, old affections and obsessions, ideas and desperate dreams... mixed in with drunken dumbshow parties, and freakshow friends...but we've all got them.

I was thinking about growing up in Wallaceburg and being here now and what that all means, how it's all connected, 'cause it is. We're never as cool as we think we are, and everyone has been there and done that first, certainly before us, right? So what's it all mean and how's it all connected? Well, first we've all got our Scott Baio story...I mean, you know, symbolically. I know I do...I mean, not a Scott Baio story but, you know... a story.

I was desperate for things, and dramatic about others stuff. I've been moved enough to tell a stranger a story as odd as Jenna Elfman's, and I've had my share of drunken dumbshow dalliances over the years. I have a lot of good friends out there that I love a lot, that I see almost never, and they probably all have different stories about me, different versions of me. My version is probably different too. What might be the same though is how I never imagined my life turning out this way. I mean, who could have wished for this? I've got the most beautiful wife and daughter on the planet, and I'm scribbling all this nonsense out into the great void from here in Hawaii where I've holed up long enough some people think I live here. I'll fly back to an amazing home and job and life, and I would have never imagined any of this. Maybe my friends would have, I don't know, but I'm certain that I wouldn't.

Yeah, I've got my own Scott Baio story...but not the kind of regret that Jenna Elfman's character does. When my Scott Baio stepped from the limo I opened my mouth and talked to him. Wait, that sounds gay. What I mean is that my story's not that much different from what Elfman babbles on about... that "destiny only takes you so far and then it's up to you to make it happen." Now I'm typing this half-assed nonsense in the middle of the Pacific with a sleeping daughter and the beautiful girl she'll eventually call Mom beside me...and even though the "Can't Hardly Wait" or Jenna Elfman or Scott Baio references seem silly and random to some there are a few of you out there who'll get what I'm talking about. Like my friend Hoop, who wrote me looking for The Zoey Blog's address to cheer her up early this morning. Don't be so sad lady. At 3 am we're all the same, except maybe Jenna Elfman 'cause she's a Scientologist and she's loaded. Scott Baio's probably not anything like us either but who cares 'cause he's Scott Baio, right?

In the end we're all connected, it just seems retarded that I'm reminded of it by Jenna Elfman in a hot angel outfit. I hope you feel better Hoop. At least you're not making Scott Baio references in the middle of hurricanes.