Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Comedian Louis CK does a hilarious bit about the song that inspired this blog title. You know that one? 1971 anti-establishment classic "Signs" by Canadian one-hit wonders Five Man Electrical Band?

Louis CK just talks about how it's the dumbest song ever. A protest song against signs. As if the sign was a new or somehow particularly pernicious invention that could be blamed on the "establishment."

Particularly the part where the guy says "I saw a sign that said...long haired freaky people need not apply..." because it's so obviously a lie. He clearly never saw a real sign that said that, and so he's making up conservative straw men against whom he can rebel.

Anyway, this post has nothing at all to do with Five Man Electrical Band or "Signs" or M. Night's Signs or any of that bullshit. It's about signatures...as in, autographs.

Though I wind up collecting lots of things, I've never really been a collector. Stuff just piles up because I'm too lazy to go through it and throw it away, more so than any desire to hang on to memorabilia or tokens from the past. I'm also not a big photo taker, probably because I don't really like looking at photos. I never know what to say when someone shows me a picture, particularly if they show me a picture of themselves.

"Do I throw out a compliment here? I guess I should, that's what they're waiting for. That's why you show someone a picture of yourself in the first place. Unless it's a passport photo or a driver's license photo. If you show that to someone, it's to point out how unappealing a likeness it is. Okay, I really need to say something...How about, 'it makes you look nice.' Nice? No one says nice any more. It's a meaningless word. If I say that, they'll know I can't think of anything actually complimentary to say, so I better think of something better. How about, 'it's really well lit'? That sucks more than 'nice.' God, I am an asshole..."

So, because I don't really appreciate looking at photos, I don't really take them very often.

But back to collecting autographs. I've started doing it recently, since working at the video store. (How pathetic!) We get a lot of celebs and semi-celebs and industry types in the store, and every now and again, I'm tempted to get one of them to sign a DVD for me.

I'm aware that this makes me something of an uber-nerd. I mean, not only do I own several hundred movies on DVD, but now I have a bunch of them autographed and/or doodled on by directors. All I need is a model of the Millennium Falcon and some 12-sided die and I'm ready for a lifetime of forced celibacy, late night World of Warcraft sessions and weekend trips to the Ren Fair.

So far, I have signed discs from Tim Burton, Guillermo del Toro and Matt Groening. Rumor has it, Oliver Stone came in at one point, but I wasn't there that day! We've also had Roger Avary in (director of Killing Zoe and Rules of Attraction, and co-writer of Pulp Fiction), and I think my friend Ray had him sign something. But I feel kind of lame when I ask, so I reserve it only for guys whose work I really like.

It's just sort of a lame thing, in a way. I mean, it would be much cooler to just tell them that you like their work, or just to not say anything and treat them like a regular person. But what can I say? I'm not that cool. And the satisfaction of having a "Simpsons" box set with a little doodle of Bart drawn on there by the creator is worth being uncool for a few minutes, I guess.