Wow. Just wow.

I need to confess: I love Chris-chan. You've heard this in my earlier post about Nashville and how I compared the immortal prose stylings of Sueleen Gay to the Internet's biggest loser since that guy who tried to argue against the death of some Sonic the Hedgehog character as something that ruins the integrity of the original series - yet, I want to elaborate of this hopeless man.

You see, Chris-chan is really Christopher "Christian Ricardo" Weston Chandler, a 28-year-old (at the time of this post) Alan Moore wannabe who thinks he's all that, which makes him try to propagate his opinion on the Internet, albeit very horribly. I mean very, very horribly. It's not that his attempts are bad - they're more along the lines of "so-bad-it's-good" - it's the fact that he expects you to put him upon the pantheon of talented artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Rob Liefeld (who should be crucified for his attempts at discontinuity), Brian Gonterman, and "casey64". Yes, I named three not-so-great artists as "talented" - that's because, despite their mediocrity, they can make something original and do something with it.

Chris just cannot.

He has successfully blended together the worlds of Pokemon and Sonic the Hedgehog into this slapdash, hackneyed, eye-boggling, and downright confusing (more so than Pynchon, Joyce, Roth, etc.) universe called "Sonichu". Yes, that comic. Sonichu the electric hedgehog Pokemon. Who speaks pretty articulately (despite most rules in Pokemon, not counting Team Rocket Meowth). Who bangs his Amy Rose knockoff "Rosechu" every damn comic. And makes fun of everything in this utterly random style that would make Tom Green and Ornette Coleman cringe. To their deaths. In Hell.

Why am I talking about this suck-up on the Internet when you have a whole Encyclopedia Dramatica page and a wiki devoted to him?

Because I have seen a film, while albeit depressing and actually well-made for the filmmaker's first attempt (thank for for being influenced by Werner Herzog), that not only shows us how bad Chris-chan types can be, but how expensive they can get.

And I'm not talking about using your parents' credit cards to buy video games. I mean using your life savings to set up a storage building and setting up a full-scale animatronic rock band from a pizza place that you consider more highly than Chuck E. Cheese's in there. Now that's some messed-up stuff going on.

That's pretty much the purpose of the 2008 documentary The Rock-afire Explosion.

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Don't get me wrong - I love nostalgia. I love it when I have family members who can relate to those times. I have family members who recall when the Chuck E. Cheese's up in Norcross used to be a Showbiz Pizza back in the day. I can recall going to Chuck E. Cheese's three times in my life - once when I was past 13. God, the pizza's so good and games are pretty fun. Not so crazy about the animatronics there - they don't program Chuck E. to sing "Lizstomania" or "Feelin' Stronger Every Day" while he scratches on the turntables - but the interactive blue screen thing is pretty fun when you're young. Now, it's not so fun unless if you can act like Cary Grant in front of a crop duster.

Of course, I'm a bit of a Showbiz Pizza fanatic. Don't get me wrong - I will never be a Chris Thrash type - but I love nostalgia. That's why I wanted to buy some merchandise from the store - like a Showbiz mug with Billy Bob voring Looney Bird and being beaten up by Mitzi Mozzarella and Dook Larue. Like a Martin Scorsese film for Disney, only written by vore fetishists and Aaron Fechter.

However, what unnerves me about this documentary is that I'm given three uber-fans of Showbiz and one casual fan (like me, if I was a girl and more prettier than Gael Garcia Bernal in Bad Education). The uber-fans get more screen time, especially balding Mountain Dew fanatic Chris Thrash. He doesn't earn much - he works at a skate rink and a car dealership in Phenix City, AL (I have passed through there on my way to Panama City/Destin and it's pretty much barren) - yet somehow he has accumulated this merchandise, a Billy Bob walk-around costume, and the entire Rock-afire Explosion in his carefully controlled warehouse behind his pretty small house. And he has a wife. How does she deal with this?

The bulk of the documentary, thankfully, is not so much on Chris Thrash and the elitist uber-fans (though it feels like it) as much as it is on Aaron Fechter's foray into capitalism and temporary fame. This documentary has caused me to respect Mr. Fechter for what he's done (he is behind Randy Pausch, who is my most influential non-family person) and his boldness to talk about how he's been duped by the system just for maintaining a DIY punk ethic when it comes to his animatronic rock band. It's especially depressing when watch the scenes where he gives you the tour of his factory and the eerie disrepair it has gone under because of managerial neglect over the past 20 years. Tools are still in their original places on the artisans' benches the day they were fired. Animatronics are melting. A repository of '80s sound equipment collects dust (though I want some). And why? He knows somebody wants it. I don't blame him.

If the trailer actually focused on Fechter's struggles and not on the uber-fans freaking out over the Rock-afire (though they are more realistic when it came to foreseeing the future of the band), then maybe I would've included this on my great movies list.

However, despite a good A-, meh. It's no The Devil and Daniel Johnston. I'm not buying that final Rock-afire anytime soon. More importantly, where would I put it?

Now those are some lucky Chris-chan types. CWC needs to learn from them - they're nerdy, they have obsessions, but they get the ladies. And pretty hot ones too. Hell, even Fechter has a nice wife. He's Supernerd.