Johnny Case in Wonderland . . . hopelessly adrift in popular culture

Last fall my friend Bob Byington came to Bedford Falls University and screened his deservedly much adored film Harmony and Me.  At the time he was deep in post on his new film, Somebody Up There Likes Me, which is making its highly anticipated premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in March as part of the Narrative Showcase.  I am dying to see the finished product, but in the meantime while he was here Bob was kind enough to give me a Somebody Up There Likes Me crew t-shirt, which I wear religiously, though perhaps without the intensity of devotion suggested by the title, as evidenced by the conversation I had about it today with a cashier at Safeway while I was merely trying to pay for my groceries.  A verbatim transcript follows:

Me: “How’s it going?”

Cashier: “Are you a religious man, sir?”

Me: “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Cashier: “A religious man.  You know.  Your shirt.  Are you a Christian man?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry but I’m not.  Not even a little bit.”

And that was the end of the conversation.  He never said another word and I paid my bill and that was that.  I think it was entirely in the spirit of the film and I was more than a little delighted.