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| Why I'd like to be … Jeff Anderson from Clerks | Why I'd like to be … Jeff Anderson from Clerks |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| When I was in sixth form I had a part-time job at a supermarket. As a member of the fresh-food department I trawled the cheese aisle, merchandised the battenburg and occasionally cleaned up "egg display collapses". It was a perfectly fine job as part-time work goes, but it was a role made so much more difficult by the customers. "Where have you moved the milk?" they'd ask, while stood next to a milk display that hadn't moved since the store was opened in the late 1980s. Other belters included: "Can you help me find my cat?" ,"Is this vodka anti-Soviet?" and: "What is cheese?" One woman would come in most weeks and try to corner you just to tell you about her husband's failed chocolate-making business. | When I was in sixth form I had a part-time job at a supermarket. As a member of the fresh-food department I trawled the cheese aisle, merchandised the battenburg and occasionally cleaned up "egg display collapses". It was a perfectly fine job as part-time work goes, but it was a role made so much more difficult by the customers. "Where have you moved the milk?" they'd ask, while stood next to a milk display that hadn't moved since the store was opened in the late 1980s. Other belters included: "Can you help me find my cat?" ,"Is this vodka anti-Soviet?" and: "What is cheese?" One woman would come in most weeks and try to corner you just to tell you about her husband's failed chocolate-making business. |
| I just wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as possible, without having to interact with them. I'd patiently stand there being a good employee while retorts remained hidden behind gritted teeth, wishing for a way to combat the daily dross. | I just wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as possible, without having to interact with them. I'd patiently stand there being a good employee while retorts remained hidden behind gritted teeth, wishing for a way to combat the daily dross. |
| Then I watched Clerks. | Then I watched Clerks. |
| Reading on mobile? Click to view | |
| Kevin Smith's cult debut summed up how I felt about so much at that time and non-actor Jeff Anderson's performance as video-store clerk Randal Graves got across perfectly how pissed off and jaded you could feel after a few six-hour shifts as a shop assistant. Cynical, sharp-tongued and articulate – he epitomised what I wanted to bring to the world of West Yorkshire shelf stacking. Of course, I didn't have the courage to spit water in to a waffling customer's face or brazenly ignore their daft questions – my biggest act of rebellion was eating some out-of-date Peperami in the warehouse – so I lived vicariously through Randal's takedowns. | Kevin Smith's cult debut summed up how I felt about so much at that time and non-actor Jeff Anderson's performance as video-store clerk Randal Graves got across perfectly how pissed off and jaded you could feel after a few six-hour shifts as a shop assistant. Cynical, sharp-tongued and articulate – he epitomised what I wanted to bring to the world of West Yorkshire shelf stacking. Of course, I didn't have the courage to spit water in to a waffling customer's face or brazenly ignore their daft questions – my biggest act of rebellion was eating some out-of-date Peperami in the warehouse – so I lived vicariously through Randal's takedowns. |
| Reading on mobile? Click to viewBut it wasn't just the horrendous insults which made Randal great. His pseudo-political Star Wars theory and riff on title not dictating behaviour are other high points as Kevin Smith wrote the kind of scenes thousands of teenagers play out every day, obsessing over trivia and making use of idle downtime. He personifies that strange time between sixth form and your mid-20s when many intelligent, articulate people struggle to find something they actually want to do for a living. | |
| It's also Randal's ability to negate the social veneer of blush-saving politeness that made me love the character. In the same way that Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm prides himself in calling people out on the bullshit they say, Randal can't leave a non-sequitur unchallenged. In many ways David's character in Curb feels like an older, successful version of Randal, able to question people's contradictions and hypocrisy safe in the knowledge that his worldview has been legitimised after writing a smash-hit sitcom. Randal also rode out to face the enemy head on, pre-empting their annoyance with annoyance of his own. From his first scene, when he pretends to want to rent Dental School just to annoy a customer who's been waiting for him to turn up for an hour, to his porno-requesting phone call to the video distribution company, his performance is a showcase of 90s slacker wit and unremitting suburban bile. | It's also Randal's ability to negate the social veneer of blush-saving politeness that made me love the character. In the same way that Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm prides himself in calling people out on the bullshit they say, Randal can't leave a non-sequitur unchallenged. In many ways David's character in Curb feels like an older, successful version of Randal, able to question people's contradictions and hypocrisy safe in the knowledge that his worldview has been legitimised after writing a smash-hit sitcom. Randal also rode out to face the enemy head on, pre-empting their annoyance with annoyance of his own. From his first scene, when he pretends to want to rent Dental School just to annoy a customer who's been waiting for him to turn up for an hour, to his porno-requesting phone call to the video distribution company, his performance is a showcase of 90s slacker wit and unremitting suburban bile. |
| But the coup de grâce of Randal's performance isn't a customer run-in; it's when he takes Dante to task about his endless self-pitying whinging, and emerges as the voice of reason. He might be lazy, he might be needlessly cruel and a massive underachiever, but at least he isn't lying to himself about how much of a prick he is. If that isn't something to applaud, then I don't know what is. | But the coup de grâce of Randal's performance isn't a customer run-in; it's when he takes Dante to task about his endless self-pitying whinging, and emerges as the voice of reason. He might be lazy, he might be needlessly cruel and a massive underachiever, but at least he isn't lying to himself about how much of a prick he is. If that isn't something to applaud, then I don't know what is. |
| • More from the Role Model series | • More from the Role Model series |