Table of Contents
Author's Note x
Cast of Characters xii
Introduction: If I Ever Start Referring to These as the Best Years of My Life, Remind Me to Kill Myself 1
Part I The Inspiration
Chapter 1 Oh My God, This Movie Is My Life! 9
Chapter 2 Old People in Your Face, Fucking with Who You Are 14
Chapter 3 The Hardest Working Slackers in Austin 40
Chapter 4 How to Pitch an Unpitchable Movie 60
Chapter 5 Don't Lead with Your Ego 72
Chapter 6 A Truffle Pig for Talent 81
Chapter 7 I've Never Worn Underwear 98
Part II The Shoot
Chapter 8 All of These Attractive Children, Unsupervised 115
Chapter 8 Maybe the '70s Didn't Suck? 125
Chapter 10 If You Don't Like Your Character, Change It 139
Chapter 11 The New Kid Versus the Old Guard 147
Chapter 12 We Were All Hormonal 155
Chapter 13 Air Raid! 169
Chapter 14 The Next Marlon Brando Probably Wouldn't Call Himself "the Next Marlon Brando" 180
Chapter 15 Anyone Who Had a Cell Phone Was Instantly an Asshole 188
Chapter 16 We Turned into Vampires 194
Chapter 17 Go Ahead and Stab Me! 202
Chapter 18 The "Fuck" Police 212
Chapter 10 Dumb and Horny and Mean and Drunk 217
Chapter 20 Alright, Alright, Alright 225
Chapter 21 She Called You a Bitch and You a Slut 231
Chapter 22 They Stay the Same Age 244
Chapter 23 Party at the Moon Tower 252
Chapter 24 Shawn and Milla Self-Destruct 259
Chapter 25 Just Keep Livin' 264
Chapter 26 You Can't Go Home Again 270
Part III The Comedown
Chapter 27 Faster, Funnier, Stupider 281
Tracklist from Richard Linklater's Original Dazed and Confused Mixtapes 294
Chapter 28 Instead of Led Zeppelin, How About… Jackyl? 296
Chapter 29 Seduced and Abandoned 313
Chapter 30 I Was Alive, and I Wasn't Afraid 331
Part IV The Legacy
Chapter 31 Amazed and Confused 341
Chapter 32 Wading into the Shark Waters 356
Chapter 33 The New Rocky Horror Picture Show? 382
Chapter 34 Dazed and Confused: The Series 388
Chapter 35 The 10-Year Reunion 394
Chapter 36 A God-Awful Failure of an Anti-Nostalgia Movie 403
Epilogue 413
Acknowledgments 419
Image Credits 423
Notes 427
Index 431