Talk Hard(ly)!

I was, for whatever the hell reason, thinking about podcasts earlier. For those of you not aware, podcasts are these random radio-like shows on the internet, where anyone can basically have their own show and anywhere from one all the up to, oh, let's say ... seven people will download and listen. (I'm kidding, there are some big-timers out there, too.)

Anyway, in thinking about that, I started to ponder the Christian Slater movie, "Pump Up the Volume." For those of you unfamiliar with this movie ... seriously, what's wrong with you? This is vintage Slater people! But seriously, if you really don't know, I will summarize the movie briefly for you:

1. Christian Slater is a disaffected teenage misfit who is painfully shy at his new high school in Arizona and bumbles awkwardly through his day, eating lunch by himself on the stairs (and who inexplicably looks almost 30 years old).

2. When Christian Slater comes home from school, he runs a short-wave radio setup in his basement, where he spends all his time talking about raging erections and copious ejaculation with the help of a voice modulator of some sort. And apparently, he really likes playing Leonard Cohen.

3. Kids flip for it, tapes are confiscated, and the PTA flies into a collective rage.

4. The too-cool-for-school-yet-still-sort-of-nerdy hottie love interest (who has been in nothing else that I can remember) takes off her sweater, revealing immaculate teardrop-shaped breasts.

5. Something about a jeep, um, and um, the phone receiver in the neighbors' shed, and ... uh, um ... did I mention the breasts yet?

Anyway, the larger point -- aside from how the chick somehow wasn't excruciatingly itchy while wearing a sweater with no bra -- is that, had this scenario been played out today, it would never be movie-worthy, and that is sad.

First off, short-wave radio? Hey, why not smoke signals? Or a series of telegrams? In the age of podcasting, you can reach anyone anywhere with whatever message you want. As a podcaster, Christian Slater would be able to piss off too many different PTAs for it to be cinematically viable.

Secondly, none of his "shocking" antics would be very shocking nowadays, even if its scarcely more than a decade later. Things way more gross than what Christian is spewing (figuratively speaking) are on the radio every day. Even NPR has Terry Gross, host of "Fresh Air." I mean, come on! (Side note: I have just outed myself as someone who listens to entirely too much NPR.)

Long story short, I'm sure podcasts are cool and all, but remember: for every little technological treat we give ourselves, we might just be robbing ourselves of a classic movie by a young star who will later go on to problems with booze, drugs and mediocre films ("Kuffs" comes to mind). Oh yeah, and the boobs-straight-out-of-the-sweater-unannounced thing. God, why is that such a turn on?