While some folks here back home may be distracted by an oil leak that could eventually cause severe damage to the eastern coastline of these United States, most of us (U.S.) are mindful of you, our American Warriors, our protectors of safety for the world.
A few messed-up individuals may say "Fuck All The Planet, I Want My Billions Cash Money," but the rest of us simply want you young soldiers back here with the rest of us.
Be well. Look sharp. Come Home Safe.
Fuck the greedy bastards, and fuck the enemy. Hard.
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Now for some temporary Mental Escape for us all.
Well hey there, you Enjoyer of the these willies tales.
If you like coffee, grab a cup and make it all sweet and creamy (2:47) while you listen to the following tune, on your Saturday Morning, before you go and do your shit in the real world.
Or, smoke some medicinal herb, if that is your thing, or even crack a fresh brewskie. No one here will ever judge you for whatever you do in your real life, while you are partaking of some oral tradition here.
In this here chapter, your links have been inserted into this column from the get-go, and continuing into tale I am about to tell you.
Too many wordy things to read? Too bad.
Here we go.
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When you set out to re-invent yourself, you only get one chance. This is in line with the "first impression" tenet. You only get one chance, you see, and most people fuck it up. There is no rewind, no do-over, no bogey.
Fortunate is to be unknown in a new school, in a new state, in a new part of the world, where it is, indeed, a new world for you.
I had learned some lessons from Roosevelt High, of which there are these three:
1. Dress intentionally, not accidentally. People judge you by the threads you wear, sucky and superficial as that sounds, but this rule is true. The clothes make the man.
2. Always participate. Especially if you find yourself in a situation where to not participate will end up with you hurt, maimed, or even dead. Wall flowers do not get a second chance. Thanks a lot to Muy Largo. And Trinity.
3. Rule. Learn how to do this before you must do it. Trial and error will last only a few trials before you FAIL.
You can hold off on Rule Numba 2 above for only a little while, in order to lurk. In joining any online community, it is proper and wise, not to mention polite, to lurk for a little bit in order to read the community and get a sense of the nature of their comradery before you engage and participate. But you can't lurk forever.
If you are a Troll, then you will starve. "Do Not Feed the Troll," is the rule these days. If you do not know what this means, then you suck. You will be eaten by the Troll. God Help You.
So I strolled about the Quad, the green area, and took in all the sights and sounds. Groups of folks all wearing styles of clothing particular to their clique laughed, teased each other, and stared at other groups with judgement in their eyes.
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Here's your Summah Time Punk Tune.
Here is a breakdown of the cliques, and their style of clothing, in no particular order or importance, at that long lost time:
Jocks. 501 Jeans with the button fly, team jerseys, sneakers. These folks held court in the area behind where Joey was dancing, and they were laughing at his bravado, his Machismo. Football Jocks were the stars of this school, McClane High. They rocked on the field, understand. They enjoyed Little Lion Man's pomposity, his solid arrogance.
Their stardom at this school of two thousand students will be important later on, in a later, continued chapter, when I (me, a lowly punker) was named Homecoming King by my fellow students at the Homecoming Celebration, which raised the ire of the Football Jocks. You will see. I had never participated in any extracurricular activity at that school, other than learning how to party correctly.
And, get this, I did not campaign or even know about such a contest. I was a write-in by a large contingency of loners and nerds.
Cheerleaders.
Cheerleaders were the drunk girls at every party: Barbie dolls with big hair, mucho make-up, and on game day, short-skirt uniforms that showed off strong, thick, taut, tanned American Thighs. One in particular, whom shall go un-named, went commando for the Pyramid, and won the admiration of we horny teeneage boys forever. These ladies were always around the jocks, most hanging on their men.
Preppies. These young men were dressed as I was, on this day. Boat shoes (brown Docksiders with white soles, no socks) 501 jeans with the button fly, button down oxford shirts (wrist cuffs buttoned) hair parted to the right. Many wore prescription glasses unabashedly, but the cool ones wore black Ray Bans, a la Tom Cruise from the Risky Business flick.
(Motion pictures were once called "Flicks" because of a by-gone era when the shutter speed of movies was slow enough that the movies actually flickered on the screen.)
Some of these preppies looked up from their notes at me and one even waved. I would sit with them on another day soon after.
Stoners. If you smoke, you poke. Smokers smoked everything they could get their hands on. Ciggies, pot, whatever. Dipping ciggies in PCP would become their downfall. But they always had the best weed, before that happened.
These folks still wore Bell-Bottomed jeans from the previous decade that had ended a couple of years previously. Blue Nikes with the white Swoosh, and flannel shirts. They would have fit in well with the Grunge era of the early nineties. They were unkempt as well.
Loadies... When the flick "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" came out, suddenly, the desert community of Fuckno found itself with wannabe surfers no where near the ocean. They dressed like Spiccoli, and bragged about non-existent excursions to the Pacific Coast West.
These young men, (mostly) were freeloaders on anyone and everyone who had any sort of intoxicant. Their joviality and excellent impersonation of Jeff Spiccoli's Surfer Dude speach impediment was contagious, and so they would actually party for free, all the time. Even during class. They were like lap dogs.
Billa Bong, OP, and Esperito shirts, long Surf Shorts and Van Sneakers (no strings) were the everyday ensemble of those "Loadies," those freeloaders.
Red Necks / Okies. These were descendants of the folks who traveled from the Dust Bowls of Oklahoma during the Depression Era to Californication in hopes of finding an honest place to sow and reap agriculture from the soil. They were a tight, cloistered community. This meant that they helped each other out, but were wary of strangers.
No-one desired nor were allowed to join such a familial clique as this one. You had to marry in, or at least get someone pregnant. These young kids drank the most alocohol of everyone at this school, a trait they'd picked up from their Dads. However, they'd help you get some, for a price. Folks otherwise shunned them. They were truly the Shunned.
Their uniform consisted of Wrangler Dungarees, shit kickers, and cowboy shirts. Lone Desperados, and they smelled like the farm.
New Wavers. These were the kids on the cutting edge of new music, and they wore neon stuff, weird shades, and had their hair all swept up with hair spray. Think Flock of Seagulls on acid (ZID). Then hit your head with a ballpeen hammer. What you see next is an approximation of how they looked.
Valley Girls. Yes, Valley Girls and Valley Dudes. Oh My Gawd, Gag Me With A Spoon. Enough said. I need a Tums now. Wealthy, entitled douchebags.
Madonna-Wannabes. No one must ever mention them or their ilk.
Mods. They wore black. These were the precursors to the Goth thing. Indeed.
Punks. Punk Rockers. Punkers. Leather, Mohawks, Spikes. Can I get an AMEN, brutha.
Fuck Yeah.
These were the cliques.
Then there were the average kids, who did not know how to join in the cliques, or perhaps, did not care to. For whatever reason, they were just doing their own thing, and they should be congratulated for their individuality.
God Bless these folks: the Unassuming, the Ordinary, the Average. They are you, and they are me. Everyman, really.
That huge contingency of "The Rest Of Us" also included the math geeks, the computer nerds, the spazzes, the homeboys, the glee club, chorus, chess, band, etc., the hopeless, the sad, but also the truly individualistic sort of artists and creators.
Many of these folks have gone on to become the engines of our U.S. Society; the ones who pay the bills for those on welfare (which would include quite a few members of the above cliques). These independent thinkers would also become the inventors, the enterprenuers, the scientists and unbridled discoverers, all of which may mean here: the Extremely Wealthy.
Wealth is measured in many more manners than simple monetary income, True That.
How are you Extremely Wealthy?
Do you enjoy your lot in life?
How did you get to where you are now?
In becoming friends with people based not on trying to fit into their clique and their narrow mind-set of what was acceptable and what was not, I did not join any clique. There was a large, un-organized contingency of individualistic-minded young folks who avoided being sucked into cliques.
It was to this large group, a majority of minorities if you will, that I gravitated. And an interesting thing occurred. Because I said, "Fuck You" to joining a clique, these individuals began to keep an eye on me, a stranger from a strange land who talked funny.
Individuality has always been something of a flibbertygibbet, a boondoggle, a bugbear.
But sometimes, it can join factions and fractions.
Always be true to yourself, even when you are re-inventing yourself.
Now go grab some sunshine, and enjoy yourself. Thanks for reading, my friend.
God Help You.
God Help Us All.
---willies out.
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