Critical Definitions

It dawned on me while watching Weird Al that I had seen an awful lot of bands playing the Uptown Theater. So, for the Wednesday Night Music Club I thought that I would feature one of them. This is Damien Rice performing a mind blowing version of “I Remember”. You really need to watch or at least listen to this one. It will be ten minutes well spent. Plus, it just shows what an incredible addition Lisa Hannigan was to his performance.

(For those wondering, I’ve also seen Wilco, Lyle Lovett, Lindsay Buckingham and Elvis Costello each play the Uptown Theater. Now realize that Weird Al can play the exact same venue as those guys. I don’t know if I should be depressed or extremely impressed. As someone who is still petitioning for the Monkees to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I really think you could make a case for Weird Al. Who else could be relevant as a novelty artist for nearly thirty years?)

Not surprisingly, I did get a fair amount of crap today for attending a Weird Al concert. I wish I could pass it off as field research but let’s face it, it’s not like they had to drag me to the show. As I mentioned last night, it was a gathering of nerds, geeks and dweebs. However, few people understand the caste system that exists between these groups.

On the bottom end is the dweeb. Dweebs tend to be scrawnish nobodies with minimal social skills. They don’t possess the intelligence of the other two groups and also tend to be slightly more anti-social. They also tend to be short, scrawny types for a reason that has never been made quite clear. Best example of a dweeb that I can think of is DJ Qualls character in The New Guy, who basically starts out the movie as a complete loser.

Next up is the geek. Geeks are best identified by their intense fandom into one specific genre. This gives us Star Trek geeks, Star Wars geeks, Buffy geeks, D&D geeks, and of course Comic Book geeks. These people will spend every waking moment learning every bit of minutiae about their chosen field and will debate whether or not Wedge Antilles really destroyed the second Death Star if given the opportunity. It’s important to note that geeks are actually a social being by nature. They go to conventions where they dress up as their favorite characters and have in-depth conversations while in character. It’s kind of the entire point of being a geek, to meet up with other geeks. Why learn Klingon if you don’t have anyone else to talk to? Sure, they might only be interacting with a very small niche. This separates them from the last class, the ruling class, and the one that I am a member of.

This of course would be the nerd. Most often represented by the symbols of the caste (glasses, allergies and an unearthly competency with math) the nerd is the highly intellectual yet socially backward ruler of this underworld. There is no problem that cannot be solved with an equation, no situation that cannot be rectified by reading a book. In essence, the dream of every nerd is to discover the meaning of life by sitting in a quiet room with no outside distractions and just thinking. Other people just get in the way of true knowledge.

Hence, nerds tend to have issues with relationships. My best example is based on something a friend told me. When women tell you about their problems it is vital to remember that they are looking for sympathy and not solutions. This is a problem given that my entire livelihood revolves around being presented with a problem, analyzing it, and developing a flowchart filled with critical tasks and timelines in order to solve it. Women don’t want that as they already know the solution before they even start complaining. I still don’t know if I’ve ever learned this important fact.

Yep, so in the end I’m a nerd albeit one with some geekish tendencies. It’s what happens when you grow up fascinated by math and science and grab an engineering degree. I’m not bothered by it anymore. Thirty plus years of being called a nerd does result in granting you a rather thick skin when it comes to insults and trust me, I’ve heard all of them. But this is what makes me who I am and it’s what made me successful. I might wish that I was smoother or a little less detailed focus but I really wouldn’t want to be somebody who wasn’t me.