The Importance of Nirvana (and Josh)

When he was in tenth grade and I was a junior in high school, Josh carried around a navy blue (or was it red?) Mead notebook containing, according to him, every single Nirvana lyric, which he had presumably spent that summer transcribing. The first time or two I asked to see it he said no, but eventually acquiesced. The first inevitable thing I was struck by was Josh’s penmanship, which I had seen before but not to this degree. It was nearly impossible to differentiate between Josh’s handwriting and a typewriter. His small a’s and g’s, for example, were the kind a keyboard makes instead of how we learn in school. This was not hastily written and barely legible scrawl, but focused and pristine devotion, replete with bracketed alternate possibilities for words he was unsure of.

The content of these lyrics varied from angry, unfocused rants to stark, desperate pleads, most of them dealing with the inevitability of change, the restrictions imposed by our environment and the stress of trying to cope with these realities. This author wanted to let others know that he was totally screwed up, but not as screwed up as they are. A motif uniting these lyrics was a defiant mocking of everything: parents, teachers, popular kids, unpopular kids, the status quo, rebels, himself, etc. I wasn’t quite sucked into pretending Nirvana’s lyrics were remarkably insightful or well-constructed, but they offered something I could relate to. In contrast to nearly every song aimed for a teenage audience I’d ever heard, there was no bragging about sexual exploits or other conquests that I knew absolutely nothing about. In fact, these songs suggested he was as confused about that stuff as I was. This writer was helplessly trapped within his own mind, a predicament I understood all too well.

Here’s a verse from “Paper Cuts” which serves nicely as an example: (The last line before the chorus, which consists of repeating the word “Nirvana,” is pretty much incomprehensible, but I tried my best.)

Black windows of paint
I scratch with my nails
I see others just like me
Why do they not try to escape?

They bring out the older ones
They point in my way
They come with the flashing lights
And take my family away

And very later I have learned
To accept some friends of ridicule
My whole existence is for your amusement
And that is why I'm here with you
To tear me with your eye on her

I didn’t know much about contemporary music. My girlfriend listened to bad hip-hop, dance music and, well, for example, her favorite song was “Vogue,” by Madonna. I asked Josh if I could borrow a tape of… what were they called again? Josh was high-strung and easily annoyed. He also didn’t like me very much. I once tried going over to his house to play video games, and when he discovered that’s why I was there, he loudly and forcefully kicked me out, accusing me of “using” him. To this day I have no idea what purpose he wanted me to have for hanging out. Anyway, he wouldn’t let me borrow a tape, but he would let me listen to one inside a band practice room while he stood outside guarding the door so I couldn’t get caught and have the cassette confiscated.

He had me start by listening to Nirvana’s first album, Bleach (1989) and followed that up with a bootleg (a real one, not the excellent compilation of live material called Insecticide (1992), as this was a few months before it came out). After having read such neatly-written lyrics, I was startled to discover not only the music but also the insanely-strained lyrical delivery were heavily distorted and incomprehensible. I now realized how much time Josh had spent listening to this band. I couldn’t really make much out of it, so in an attempt to understand it, I did what I always do and sought to discover its roots. I asked my mom for bands with songs like “Louie, Louie” and “Helter Skelter.” It’s interesting to note that, looking back at this moment twenty years later, I must have known more about music than I generally give myself credit for back then, because that is a damn fine question. I don’t really remember what music my mom came up with to listen to, but it unfortunately wasn’t The Stooges or Syd Barrett. She did, however, have me read The Catcher and the Rye, which contained that exact same magic of offering a character that I felt I could closely relate to even though we had absolutely nothing in common.

After the success of Nevermind (1991), seemingly every band from Seattle got signed to a major label, and one thing the best of them had in common was being influenced by The Melvins, perhaps the most under-rated rock band of all time. They spent the mid-80’s churning out the best music at the time, and continue to do so today. No band from that region was worse than Pearl Jam. Little annoys me more than mediocre music with insipid melodies backing up a self-absorbed, pretentious frontman, and in those ways Pearl Jam has more in common with U2 than the so-called “Seattle Sound.”

The third Nirvana studio album, called In Utero (1993), was released as I began my senior year of high school. Although I feel like I know the lyrics to every one of its songs, another album was released by a group from Chicago at almost the same time which I would argue is one of the greatest rock albums of all time: Siamese Dream (1993), by The Smashing Pumpkins. There has been a copy sitting in a used bin at a thrift store for several weeks, which is absolutely appalling. In fact, that is what inspired me to write this homage to contemporary popular music from my high school years. Billy Corgan’s wall of perfectly overlayed guitars backing odd, strainy vocals was probably heavily influenced by REM, but sounds nothing like them. Ironically, I was introduced to The Smashing Pumpkins at church. Our pastor, apparently recycling a sermon from twenty years previous, contrasted the lyrics from Chuck Berry’s “School Days” with Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” in order to demonstrate how troubled and confused “kids today” were. He then offered hope that our misguided youths were seeking answers and vulnerable to be “saved” through “proper guidance” by presenting the Pumpkins song, “Quiet”:

Quiet, I am sleeping in here
We need a little hope

For years I've been sleeping
Helpless, couldn't tell a soul

Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me

Silent, metal mercies castrate boys to the bone
Jesus, are you listening up there to anyone at all?

We are the fossils, the relics of our time
We mutilate the meanings so they're easy to deny

Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me

Quiet!
I am sleeping
Quiet!
I am sleeping
Quiet!
I don't trust you
I can't hear you

Be ashamed of the mess you've made
My eyes never forget, you see…
Behind me

Behind me, the grace of falling snow
Cover up everything you know
Come save me from the awful sound…
Of nothing

I found this sermon so poignant that I went right out and purchased both Siamese Dream and a Chuck Berry two-disc compilation. (The Alice Cooper album covers were creepy enough that I figured I could take the preacher’s word about that one.) A large number of the Chuck Berry songs were preoccupied with the attractiveness of underage girls….

Part II
Shannon Hoon was born to sing. I’d put his voice up there with Roy Orbison and Freddy Mercury in terms of irreplicable natural ability. Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn have an uncanny symbiotic way of weaving deceptively sophisticated parallel guitar parts. This is not your grandma’s rhythm guitar/lead guitar duo. Brad Smith and Glen Graham are a rock-solid rhythm section, capable of understanding the nuances of any tempo. These musicians co-wrote both the music and lyrics as the band Blind Melon. Their big hit, “No Rain,” is probably the worst song they ever did, which is not to say that it’s a bad song. They were one of the few bands that could have lured me away from Star Trek: Next Generation or Northern Exposure to watch on that asinine David Letterman show, which is precisely what they did on April 8, 1994. After an absolutely sublime performance of “Change,” Hoon started talking seriously about I didn’t know what, until it ended with, “…goodbye to Kurt Cobain.” The blood rushed out of my head as I began flipping through all six channels in a futile attempt at making sense of this. All these years later, I still weep inconsolably when I hear that performance.

It seems like every revolution in American music is halted by drugs, especially heroin. The problem is so well-known that Eric Dolphy, whom I would argue is THE greatest musician of the 20th century, died after falling into a diabetic coma and being left untreated in a hospital bed because it was assumed he’d overdosed and they were waiting for the drugs to wear off. Even so, I’d suggest the problem is even worse than generally advertised. For whatever reason, my parents told me Janis Joplin died of alcohol poisoning even though it was really a heroin overdose. It has been stated by those that were there that Jim Morrison died of a heroin overdose. Vomit asphyxiation, which is how Jimi Hendrix died, is common with a heroin overdose, because the drug causes the lungs to cease working. Further, I’d be willing to bet that the same government employees encouraging heroin use among blacks to halt the Black Power movement have something to do with this. To borrow a Joseph Heller quote that I thought was Kurt Cobain because he used it in the song “Territorial Pissing,” “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

Josh asked me what I did to become a member of National Honor Society. “Absolutely nothing,” I replied. He said he wanted to get in but hadn’t been chosen as a member. “It’s not really a thing. All you do is get a group picture taken once a year for the yearbook. That’s it.” But since he still seemed upset about it, I went and spoke to the teacher who coordinated the NHS photograph for our school. He explained that the voting board didn’t feel Josh demonstrated the community leadership required to be a member. I tried to retort that I didn’t have any community leadership abilities either, but he deftly cited the current conversation as an example that I did. When I graduated from high school, Josh had compiled over a hundred credit hours from Iowa State University and was the only one of the four of us in Advanced Computer Programming IV who actually succeeded in learning Fortran. I’m sure he became a successful person regardless of whether he was ever accepted into NHS or any other club.

When I got to college, I was completely confused by the omnipresent Nirvana t-shirts and posters, and assumed they must have jumped on the bandwagon after he died. In my high school, the popular kids listened to Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. I had never watched MTV, and honestly never realized Nirvana was a successful and popular band. I didn’t even know there was a version of Nevermind with a hidden track. It was only looking back that I realized there was a veritable army of kids scattered all over the country who had been united by an unkempt, flaxen-haired, awkward young man whose raspily screeching voice successfully expressed their sense of alienation while simultaneously obliterating it.

In 2006, Kurt Cobain became the highest-earning dead celebrity, unseating Elvis Presley. However, I just glanced at the current list, and Cobain’s name is nowhere to be found. I personally never cared for much that Elvis did other than his early Sun recordings, and even those are average at best, so I can totally understand how people today might listen to Nirvana and wonder what the big deal was. Some things are truly impossible to explain to anybody who didn’t live through it. From my perspective, I wonder how kids today survive high school at all if the crappy music on contemporary radio is any indication of what they’re listening to.

Although Shannon Hoon constantly altered the lyrics on live versions of this song, here is the transcription of “Change” from the debut album by Blind Melon (1992):

I don't feel the sun’s coming out today
It’s staying in, it’s gonna find another way
As I sit here in this misery
I don't think I'll ever, no Lord, see the sun from here

And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say, and they'll say
Hey look at him! I'll never live that way
And that's okay
They're just afraid to change

When you feel life ain't worth living
You got to stand up and take a look around and then you look up way to the sky
And when your deepest thoughts are broken
Keep on dreaming boy, ‘cause when you stop dreaming it's time to die

And as we all play parts of tomorrow
Some ways will work and other ways we'll play
But I know we can't all stay here forever
So I want to write my words on the face of today
And then they'll paint it

And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say, they’ll say
Hey look at him and where he is these days
When life is hard you have to change
When life is hard you have to change

Paradoxical Viewpoints

While the two people I hung out with most in junior high are two of the most generous and caring people I’ve encountered, it chagrins me to admit that the three people I spent the majority of my time with in high school are utterly despicable. I mention this not to speak ill but to ponder why I didn’t notice. They would criticize how I have changed, but I perceive my own character back then as deficient. I blame this in part on a typically teenage combination of wholly self-assured and utterly confused, but also on a fundamentally skewed view of reality.

One insight into my high school mindset is an occurrence I remember in one of Bob’s classes. (Bob was the teacher: his name was Mr. Roberts, but everybody called him Bob, because he allowed them to do so.) One of his assignments was to write a character sketch of him. I essentially wrote, “Bob adheres to New Age beliefs,” and turned it in, proud that I had so succinctly captured his persona. It came back with a failing grade and the comment, “You didn’t follow the assignment, which was to describe my personality.” I was genuinely confused by this. It seemed like he was suggesting there was something more to him than which religious stereotype he most resembled. Perhaps there was a religion I was unfamiliar with which better reflected his ideology? Perhaps he wasn’t privy to the accuracy of my insight? I thought about challenging the grade I’d received and get to the bottom of this obvious misunderstanding on his part, but decided against it.

The whole affair seems utterly strange to me today, especially considering the only thing I know about New Age is that it somehow involves crystals and John Tesh, and have no idea how I related these to Bob. I can’t figure out how I presumably didn’t understand that people have unique traits and qualities separate from any ideology. I can only surmise that I didn’t see them because I didn’t know to look for them. I just assumed everyone was either going to heaven or hell when they died, and it was best not to get to know the ones that were going to hell because they were bad influences. This heavily suggests that I was a major tool, to use parlance that, as far as I know, didn’t exist back then.

All life would be tragic if we weren’t provided the opportunity to learn, change and grow; but even more unfortunate is the life of someone who refuses that chance. I’ve long held that our lives our guided foremost by our priorities; that the things we value the most affects our perception of everything we encounter. I propose that even if we understand our own priorities, egocentrism makes it difficult to discern the motivations of others. For instance, I’ve long scratched my head at those prone to declare, “You’re just jealous,” as it seems ridiculously dismissive reductionism. But I’m not at all a jealous person, and perhaps that is why I’ve never considered it a valid motive for any pronouncement.

I’m notoriously impatient, and that bad habit prevents me from paying enough attention sometimes. I think of replies while others are still speaking, can be easily frustrated by communication failures and never see the point of beating around the bush. I’m prone to attack a sentence before heeding the clarifying or qualifying follow-up. My hurriedness tends to cause me to neglect affability and embrace crass bluntness. Our society is generally more comfortable with pretense and niceties than frankness, and perhaps rightfully so. Honest opinions tend to either offend or infuriate. Others are prone to informing me, “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,” to which I respond, “It’s not what you hear, it’s what you’re listening for.”

Oh, the irony. What am I listening for?

I find the nature of reality both fascinating and important. Sadly (from my perspective), this puts me in the minority. I’m constantly struggling to see things objectively and from multiple angles. This translates into a fondness for debate. While I strive to understand, often by exposing untruths (following Sherlock Holmes’ famous maxim), I’m often seen as argumentative. In actuality, I don’t at all like to argue and find it counter-productive.

Because some might retort that the difference between argument and debate is only semantic, I want to address what I see as a key difference: in argument there is always disrespect or the feeling of being disrespected whereas in debate both parties attempt to find mutual respect. Debate is sometimes impossible; one can only argue with a grocery store employee explaining store policy or a driver trying to run people off the road. Argument is the expression of one’s own bias causing frustration at another’s perceived faults. Debate, on the other hand, seeks accuracy and avoids assumption.

For some, the goal of debate is to trick another into a corner from which they cannot get out. This makes sense if you’re a prosecuting attorney or simply want to humiliate someone, but often results in chasing red herrings. I prefer to stay on topic.

Perhaps the greatest result of any debate is to come to a mutual understanding and appreciation for why divergent opinions are held, but this is only possible when both viewpoints have validity. When I don’t perceive this to be the case, I am strongly inclined to try and talk some sense into another. Although I might optimistically strive to change another’s mind, usually the best I can hope for is to promote further reflection or exploration on a topic. My debate tendency is to attempt to introduce concepts and variables as well as point out assumptions and fallacies pertaining to a conviction that perhaps another hasn’t considered. Unconsciously, I tend to assume refusal to accept facts is due to stubbornness. But after reflecting on some similarly confusing conversations and encounters with others through the years, I’m realizing some conversations never get anywhere precisely because their priorities, motivations and goals are fundamentally incompatible with mine, resulting in two separate conversations taking place simultaneously.

Some see stubbornness as a virtue. In this framework, the person who most refuses to concede is seen to have more conviction in what they believe, and through some fallacy of logic conclude that this validates those beliefs. Facts are considered a crutch for those who fail to “feel it in their heart.” In lieu of valid evidence, these people will tend to recite quotes echoing their position and metaphors explaining them. They will boast of their faith-based beliefs, not realizing that term was originally intended as a mocking antonym for fact-based beliefs. Rigidly hoping does not lead to truth, but (to state a tautology) it does sustain hope, and that is the highest of priorities for many. For me, as already stated, futility is found in a life refusing change, so what others perceive as retaining hopefulness I view as hopelessness. Eureka.

The Christian ideology I grew up with emphasized humility, devotion and long-suffering. My cynical self now realizes this as a successful scheme to keep subjects blithe, passive and obedient. However, there is another Christian angle that venerates success, prosperity and accolades because those things are granted by a higher power only to those deemed worthy enough to have them. This latter twist is so foreign, my inclination is to approach it with incredulousness, but both concepts are right there in the same compilation of books. Just as piety can be thought to bring success, success can be thought to prove piety.

There are yet others who esteem dominance, intimidation and oppression. They adhere to the premise, “might makes right,” and for them, the goal of debate is to display the most strength. This chauvinist mentality will admit making mistakes but not that they’re wrong. They seek out perceived weaknesses, such as compromise, modesty, frustration and empathy, and attempt to exploit them. They epitomize schadenfreude. One way in which their assumption of another’s weakness can be detected is in bizarre attempts at inducing guilt. They talk loud, interrupt and use unnecessarily arcane words.

Again, this prioritizing of bravado over reasoning seems to me so patently flawed, it is very difficult for me to accept that it’s how some people think. However, upon reflection, we all tend to assume docile creatures, like cows, are dim-witted. Further, it is convenient to assume that this perceived dumbness makes us inherently superior to them, and this perceived superiority seemingly justifies our opinions and behaviors over theirs.

Another motivation that I’ve discovered others to have is the desire for affirmation. Some become crazed when their viewpoints go unacknowledged. My assumption would be that these people suffer from low self-esteem, and was surprised to find it is in fact a major symptom of narcissism. Like an over-inflated balloon, narcissists’ exaggeratedly self-important egos are highly fragile. They will criticize others of the same traits they justify in themselves. They love to boast of their possessions and accomplishments while hypocritically underestimating and devaluing others. Narcissists are often envious of things belonging to others since they see themselves as more deserving. They hold grudges. From my perspective, the most frightening trait of narcissists is that they see themselves as having or even being the cure for all that is wrong with the world.

However, it should be considered that seeking approbation can also be due to a desire for respect; which is justifiable considering without respect all debate is doomed. Disrespect is rooted in lack of empathy, and lack of empathy is the root of all kinds of evils. It is the common thread between those motivated by both dominance and narcissism. Without empathy, people are compartmentalized with labels and lumped into prepackaged categories, exactly as I had done with Bob in high school. The feelings and experiences of others, being considered less important than loftier, purer ideals, can be dismissed. Only those beliefs which personally affect that individual’s life matter, so, for example, a man will not value women’s rights.

While my goal here is to understand the perspectives of others in order to find common ground from which more productive dialogue can be generated, I’m at a loss how to see eye to eye with the trait of lacking empathy, as it creates a conundrum. I suppose the best we can do is find other characteristics or qualities within a person which make communication possible. We must look beyond the ease with which we can write someone off as a sociopath, for example, and gain awareness and understanding of each person as a fellow human being. We must strive to remain empathetic even when it seems others are being wholly selfish. In the end, it is not our ability to successfully debate but our humanity that prevents us from destroying ourselves.

Junior Senior

Eleventh grade would bring a lot of change. I met Nacho on the school bus. I’m not sure why I was riding the bus. It could have been after I rear-ended my VW bug into some crazy chick, driving in what I thought was fog but turned out to be a broken defroster. Or maybe it was just because that piece of junk didn’t start half the time. I frequently got rides to marching band in Scott’s Camaro with a bass you could hear from two blocks away and to jazz band with Jason Ruddy, who is my uncle’s grandson.

Regardless, Nacho was a Catalan living in Madrid, which he attempted to elucidate the significance of. He told me about futbol, and gave me a shirt that said futbol, but it would be until years later that I’d discover Ronaldinho and finally realize what he’d been trying to explain. Because his host family had to move and he didn’t want to change schools again, Nacho ended up moving in and living with us for the school year.

Before Nacho could even speak English, we went to Hardee’s with Faith and Charity Abuhl, where it was revealed that both of them were interested in dating me. (Not at the same time, obviously.) Charity was more audacious but Faith was prettier and my age, so I went with her. Her parents had a rule that we could only go on two dates a week, which we probably thought was criminally cruel at the time, but was actually a good idea. She introduced me to tennis. We ate a lot of fast food and saw a bunch of movies. Honestly, we didn’t have that much in common, and anyway we were too naive to know what our interests were or what to do with our time.

After I wrecked the bug, my brother gave me his Ford Festiva. A group of seniors would amuse themselves by picking it up and carrying it to random places in the school lot. I wrecked the Festiva, too, by running a yield sign in front on the school and getting sideswiped by a Camaro.

My drum instructor finally succeeded in convincing me to start actually listening to jazz music. Max Roach’s Drums Unlimited completely changed my views of what was possible on the drumset, and soon I was buying up every jazz CD that was recommended to me. Also around this time, I got into Jimi Hendrix and Erik introduced me to all manner of gangsta rap. I watched Star Trek: Next Generation and Northern Exposure religiously. I also read a lot of classic literature. I became close friends with a kid at my church named Michael Gossen, and we hung out on most Sunday afternoons. Clay Scarborough would come over not infrequently to escape his rough home life and we’d spend the evenings watching anime, Godzilla, kung-fu, samurai and camp (B) movies. I don’t know how Clay knew so much so early in life, except that he was more perceptive than anyone I’d ever met. I’d also wander over to Dave Shultz’s house and get beat at ping pong. Most of what I remember about school itself involves screwing around with Dave- seeing how close we could get to getting in trouble without actually getting in trouble. I spent a lot of time in detention for trifles so hackneyed I doubt they even bothered to tell my parents.

Larry Cory and Andrew Larsen would continuously harass me to let them cheat off my tests in Mrs. Christensen’s class, the content of which I don’t even remember. Jeremy Wicks and I dissected a cat in Advanced Biology. We watched Ken Burn’s Civil War series in Mr. Taylor’s class, during which this kid sat behind me and drew me pictures. He was another kid that got picked on, and I only remember that everyone called him “Doorstop.” I hope that kid turned out alright….

During the summer between eleventh and twelfth grades, I worked during the day at a concession stand on the ninth hole of the Ankeny Golf & Country Club golf course. This young kid who lived across the street would join me. We’d listen to Adam Sandler and serve extremely strong mixed drinks to well-tipping golfers while helping ourselves to candy bars. I can’t fathom why I was allowed to do that job unsupervised.

A waitress named Kristin Gamble, who’s twin sister had been there all along, started working at the AG&CC restaurant, where I worked in the evenings washing dishes until I was promoted to making salads. I exerted a lot of energy playing practical jokes on Kristin.

I got good enough at tennis that I’d routinely go to the courts by the library and defeat the kids that were actually on the North Polk tennis team, which would make them extremely pissed, much to my amusement.

My senior year of high school was basically more of the same. Josh Kortbein introduced me to Nirvana. Cory Webb introduced me to Soundgarden. Beth Dudley tried to introduce me to Brooks and Dunn. I somehow discovered Smashing Pumpkins and Blind Melon. Dave and I spent way to much time making a computer game called Clue II. We took a class trip to Washington DC. My most vivid memory of that is being alone in a hotel room listening to a Tony Williams CD and having the guys I was rooming with come running in to telling me to join then at the pool because Erin Bequeaith was wearing a skimpy bikini. I didn’t care, and continued listening to the CD.

I spent my last summer before college still working at the AG&CC restaurant, and the person I’d miss the most when I went away to college with Faith was Kristin.

The Barbs

The most notable change to start my freshman year of high school was 7:00am marching band rehearsals on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as well as jazz band rehearsals at the same time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wasn’t actually in the jazz band; I simply attended at the bequest of the teacher in order to learn from Mike Leonard and Rusty Wiseman how to play jazz on the drumset. I lived right around the corner from Mike, and he picked me up in his black Monte Carlo for awhile to go to jazz band practice. We never spoke and he never even attempted to teach me anything. Eventually he just decided to stop picking me up altogether. Ignoring me wouldn’t be grounds to deem him an asshole, but the fact that he was constantly ridiculing his girlfriend does. Rusty never taught me anything either, but at least he was cordial.

Marching band, however, was a blast. This animated redhead named Nicole Pennington generously made sure we had a good time in the drum line. Amy Johnson was also still there, and then a few new people began trickling in- I believe Nathan Tigges was first, followed by Kara Brandau. It would be years before I found another group with which I laughed so much. We gave ourselves nicknames- I was Mickey (because I had a Mickey Mouse watch I’d gotten from Disneyland over the summer) and Nicole and Kara were The Barbs. The Barbs quoted from the movie Misery incessantly.

Nathan was an interesting guy. He was smart and observant, with a wry sense of humor. He was also thin and clumsy, which he was perceptibly self-conscious about. I remember suggesting to him that he should learn how to fight. He was a year older than me, but also happened to have an extremely attractive sister in my class named Adrienne. She was very nice to me, although I sort of don’t think she’d remember who I was.

The prettiest girl in my class was Lisa Moore, who sat next to me in science class. Her house got destroyed by a tornado that passed near our school during a band concert. Maybe that’s what caused her to move, but I almost think that happened after she was already gone and I simply heard about it through the grapevine. Either way; she transferred to Ankeny, and on her last week at North Polk I got an infection in my ear that swelled up and was pretty gross and I always figured that was her last impression of me if she remembered me at all. I was quite floored when I got a Facebook friend request from her last year.

Bryan Hitz played the trombone, and the trombone players were an interesting group. Bryan began hanging out mostly with a hilarious and vulgar guy named Doug, and frankly that made me jealous. Today it all seems childish, but then again, I was a child back then. Eventually, Bryan started dating an older girl named Jonann Owen, which launched him into a downward spiral of depression. I can’t remember when another character named Clay Scarborough would join the trombone players, but he would grow to become a great friend and influential person, introducing me to all manner of Japanese movies, a genre I have since become somewhat obsessed with.

Neither Bryan nor Trace went back out for basketball in ninth grade, so only Erik and I were left on the bench. The only reason I ever got into a game was because, if it was a blow-out, Charlie Husak would request that I replace him for the last two minutes. I would later have the privilege of getting to know his grandparents, and I will testify that all the Husaks were wonderful people. (Another delightful family in Polk City was the Webbs.)

The basketball team often practiced in the elementary school gymnasium, and for some reason that space nearly always gave me a nosebleed. I went to a doctor who stuck something hot up my nose but the problem persisted. This was excruciatingly humiliating, but at least it did get me out of having to run back and forth and finishing last.

Besides Erik and Charlie, the rest of the basketball team were assholes- especially Curious George, who now went by Magic. Little pranks gradually escalated into routine harassment. I was stuffed in lockers and toilets and wrapped in Cory Brown’s shit-streaked towel. Near the end of the season, I joined an everybody-against-everybody basketball contest on the stage behind the basketball court and ended up scoring more points than most of the others. Suddenly it occurred to me that none of those guys were actually any good at basketball either. The coach had witnessed the scrimmage, and when we were done, said to me, “If you keep practicing, you could be a starter next year.” I decided that would be the sweetest revenge, and spent the summer between ninth and tenth grades practicing a ton of basketball, often scrimmaging with a kid a year younger than me named Sean who lived nearby. Sean overtly disdained me, which made him good competition. He also had an Atari.

Attempting to become a starter on the basketball team probably isn’t the dumbest idea I’ve ever had, but it ranks right up there.

By the start of tenth grade I had received my school-work permit, which gave me free reign to drive my rusted-out ’71 Volkwagon Beetle as recklessly as possible, which I took full advantage of. (The first time I took the driving test, I missed a speed limit sign and consequently failed for driving too slow, so I had to take it again.)

Bryan was forcibly removed from North Polk not long after tenth grade began, and the rest of that school year is a blur of numbness. Only the kindness of The Barbs, as well as my friendships with Clay and Dave Shultz, made that year survivable.

Mike and Rusty had both graduated, which left jazz drumming duties in my incapable hands, along with Aaron Weineth, who was a year younger than me and a better drummer. He had started taking private drum lessons from Woody Smith in Urbandale, so I did the same. I would continue taking lessons from Woody right up until I left for college.

In other places, kids in the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program attend a different school. Unfortunately, all we did was take some group test on the computer every year that featured a creature called The Greak Awk, or something like that. I was the only male in TAG, which was great because, in contrast to the guys, every girl in my class was nice to me. I assumed it was because I seemed pathetic and harmless.

Anyway, several hours into one of these TAG tests, the multiple-choice question asked was, What unit is used to measure the length of a horse? Hattie Sparks, who was the only girl I ever dared asking out during high school, and who declined every time, immediately answered, “I think it’s a hand.” I knew hands were used to measure the height of a horse, but that seemed close enough, and besides, I wanted Hattie to be right. For some reason, this devolved into me having a meltdown, after which I assumed none of those girls would ever want to have anything to do with me.

Besides being tormented by various groups of jerks, and relatedly, discovering while rolling around inside a bass drum case I was somewhat claustrophobic, that’s about all I remember about tenth grade.

Near the end of it, Erik and I went to the Saylorville Marina with the intent of applying for summer jobs, but we spent the whole day goofing around on the docks and never got around to it. Luckily, Trace let us know about job openings at the Ankeny Golf and Country Club, and we both got hired. I started out my first job washing dishes for the member’s only restaurant at the country club. Erik didn’t last there long, but I liked it well enough, even though for the first year of that job everybody except the salad maker (who’s name I oddly can’t remember) was pretty bitchy. Strangely, everybody there called me Andy.

The Golden Years of Junior High

I remember the thing with Joe Gardeman: we had art class together and he thought it was funny to smear paint on me and my artwork. When I complained to the teacher, she intimated my artwork didn’t have any redeeming qualities to start with so it didn’t particularly matter. So the next time he tried to sneak behind me to do something annoying, I tried to elbow him with a backswing of my arm but missed and fell out of my stool instead. Obviously this with quite embarrassing for me and amusing to him and I tried for awhile to even the score.

Joe was friends with this intimidatingly strong yet friendly classmate named Cameron Hicamp. Cam was also on the football team and, taking pity on me after I’d whined about being head-butted (with my helmet on) during practice, told me if anyone ever messed with me to let him know and he would take care of it, which meant that Joe and I were always friendly after that and nobody would mess with me for the remainder of junior high, after which Cam moved away.

Every year we had to take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). Everybody hated those things, but I always secretly enjoyed the essay section as some of them were rather interesting. In fact, I would sometimes get so wrapped up in the essays I’d have to hurry through the test questions, and later when I got bored with the other tests, I’d skip back in the test booklet to re-read them. Anyway, one day I sat down to take the test only to realize I had a #3 pencil. As anyone who’s taken it knows, basically the only rule of the test is that you have to use a #2 pencil. I somehow procured one, but as time began, Cam leaned over and said, “Quick, give me that pencil,” referring to the #3 pencil I’d left on my desk. Not knowing what else to do, I gave it to him, and until this day have always wondered what the outcome of that was, never daring to mention it to anybody.

When the results of the ITBS came in, the principal called me to his office to personally congratulate me for scoring at the absolute top of the curved percentage test. As I spent the majority of my time surrounded either by idiots or people that couldn’t care less about tests, I didn’t find that result particularly exciting. Then, the principal suggested that I could help tutor some of my peers. That suggestion struck me as ludicrous. I didn’t know how to teach. I didn’t know how to interact with peers. Basically, the only thing I knew was how to fill in little ovals with a #2 pencil. Later that day, I heard Cameron Hicamp’s name over the loudspeaker, being called into the office, and I knew it was to inform him he’d scored at the bottom of the ITBS.

Once I got through the first semester, the rest of junior high was awesome. Erik and I played a lot of GI Joe (yes, we were aware we were too old for GI Joe), Nintendo (at which I never improved) and, most importantly, befriended Bryan Hitz. Bryan is the most imaginative person I’ve ever met. He was constantly coming up with a myriad of games for us to play, ranging from Supreme Retaliation to Willie’s Quest and culminating in a club called SASL (Students Against Stephen Leach), in which we devised ways to torment our favorite teacher. Bryan introduced me to “Weird” Al Yankovic, Dr. Who and who knows what else.

I didn’t intend to go back out for football in eighth grade, but Mr. Taylor, the coach, came up to me the first day of 8th Period study hall and gave me some speech about not quitting, so I inexplicably spent another semester being crushed by people actually big enough to play football. I also went out for basketball both years of junior high. Bryan, Erik, Trace and I sat at the far end of the bench and amused ourselves by mimicking the coaches and whatnot. The coaches threatened us with not letting us play if we goofed around, which didn’t discourage us at all, as not only did we not want to humiliate ourselves on the court, we already knew they weren’t going to put us in anyway.

One day during Mr. Latimer's eighth grade history class, I suddenly threw up, possibly in the direction of Brenda Nelson. From then on, Matt Larsen would call me Barf Boy, which I didn’t actually find particularly worse than Wormser (because I looked like that character from Revenge of the Nerds), Will or the various other bastardizations of my last name I was generally called. Honestly, I was rather proud that Matt Larsen knew who I was.

Whereas I didn’t even know why other males considered them interesting, Matt seemed to understand girls. Further, he seemed to know which girls. Several of them flocked around him, and he had a way of showing off with smart-ass, condescending retorts. When I wore a Harley Davidson shirt that he said I wasn’t cool enough for, I knew that was some kind of hint to wear that shirt more often. On rare occasions when Matt was not with girls, he talked to me like I was a normal person.

If I could figure out a way to combine Bryan’s creativity with Matt’s confidence, I figured that was about all I’d need in life.

Fall of 88

Andrew Mercer was the cruelest kid I ever encountered. He’d wait a couple blocks from the bus stop so he could jump me in the mornings. Then he’d apologize. That was the worst part. Strangely, I’d request to safely remove my glasses before being attacked and he would oblige. I didn’t know what he was picking on me for, except that I was the imposter new kid at school with the same first name. I was also an easy-looking target, but I was actually scrappy and not one to back down from a fight, even turning the tables and getting the better of him sometimes, so probably things escalated as a result. I also recall some early skirmishes with Joe Gardeman at the same bus stop, but as I never harbored any resentment towards him, I suspect those were instigated by me. During the bus ride itself, I tried to mind my own business as the rest of the kids tried their best to light the bus on fire and torment the driver, who they called One-Eyed Jack. I once witnessed a projectile narrowly missing the back of his head before cracking the windshield. I was grateful that at least I wasn’t being picked on as much as him.

Within the first couple weeks at my new school, I received a mysterious note from someone named “Aimee” asking me out. I didn’t know what to make of it, so I asked Matt, who still had a locker next to me and was still one of the few people I knew at that point. He shrugged. I eventually concluded it must have come from the girl drummer in band named Amy Johnson and could only assume she was spelling her own name wrong to be cute. So we wrote notes back and forth for awhile. She always ended them with TTFN. I really never understood the point of it, unless it had something to do with the nervousness associated with interacting with her.

I signed up for the football squad, not realizing actual football with body armor is much different than touch football in front yards. It was a nightmare that started 8th Period and lasted until 5pm. I would get so nervous during 7th Period that I sometimes thought I would pass out. The body armor weighed more than I did. I played tight-end, and rotated out with Jeremy Wicks every other play. When I came in, I’d give the quarterback, Charlie, the next play, which was always the same play- hand the ball to Andrew Mercer or Ryan and hope for a miracle. We lost every single game.

The house we initially moved into in Polk City had issues with the title. It was owned by an incarnation of evil, who happened to be the father of Dustin Drozd. Dustin had a clever wit which I admired, but his dad told all of his children in my presence that they weren’t allowed to hang out with me because my family was causing him trouble. I’d later experience a scene straight out of To Kill a Mockingbird where Dustin’s dad threatened my dad’s life.

My dad and I raised pigeons, and dad built a pigeon shed in the backyard. One day I was taking care of or playing with the pigeons when, to my horror, Amy and another girl named Cara appeared. I showed them the pigeons and answered their questions as hurriedly as possible. At least that’s what I think I did, as everything had become a blur of panic. All I could think was how I would explain to my parents, who I assumed were watching from the windows in the house, why I had been talking with girls. Interacting with the opposite sex was not something that was condoned in my family.

On the last day before Christmas break, Amy’s friend Jodi informed me that she was breaking up with me. For some reason, I chose to respond, “I don’t believe you,” which caused her to disappear for a few minutes, after which she returned with the news, “You’d better.” I was slightly relieved that I’d no longer have to spend time figuring out how to compose notes.

The first guys to befriend me at North Polk Junior High/High School were Trace Kendig and Erik Sheldon. I met them both in Mr. Leach’s English class. I believe the first thing Erik asked me was whether I liked the song Kokomo, by The Beach Boys. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he sang it to me, which I found hilariously intriguing.

When the art teacher heard I was associating myself with Trace, she bluntly told me he was an idiot. This is just how messed up that school was. The only thing wrong with Trace was that he smoked cigarettes, and he never so much as offered a cigarette to me. Trace and I never really did hang out a lot, probably only because we lived in different towns, but as we got older he’d occasionally give me a ride in his goofy kit-car and was also instrumental in landing me my first job.

Erik and I, however, would become best friends and hang out a ton in junior high. This had a lot to do with the fact that, thankfully, the sale of that first house never went through, and over Christmas break we moved again. Polk City is divided by a rise or hill, and we moved from under the hill to on it, one carload at a time. Now I lived across the street from Amy and the next street over from Erik. This move also meant a change of buses and bus stops. I could now learn about every baseball player and how much they were worth via Erik’s baseball card collection while being driven to school by One-Eyed Jack’s wife.

Andrew Mercer moved out of state before seventh grade ended.

Summer of Drought

The other day, this nice old gardener named Charlie commented that he hadn’t seen a drought like this (in Iowa) since 1988. “But you probably wouldn’t remember that,” he added.

Truth is; I remember the summer of ’88 like it was yesterday. That’s when we moved from a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere to the small town of Polk City. I found it pretty easy to meet kids simply by riding my yellow Huffy bicycle around town, and quickly discovered that I lived not far from three classmates- Jason England, Bob Newton and Matt Bird. Jason liked to bike ride and skateboard, but I don’t remember him participating in the frequent front yard touch football games, which was my favorite thing to do. I also don’t remember him joining us in playing Nintendo, which is what we usually did. I wish I had learned to skateboard- I probably would have gotten to know Jason better. In fact, I do remember my sole childhood skateboarding experience, which consisted of getting on Jason’s sister’s board and immediately wiping out.

Bob Newton played touch football with us sometimes, and his front yard was a preferred field, but in general he was not one for shenanigans. Whereas I have always been a bit hyper and like to stay active, Bob was kind of lazy. I remember mostly hanging out with him alone. I never knocked on Jason’s door, even though he lived across the street, but I’d frequently knock on Bob’s, which was about a block away. This might have been due to my knowledge that his parents were never home. He’d show me where they stashed their weapons and booze… in a non-threatening, matter-of-fact way. It seems crazy in retrospect, but these things were innocently revealed as a way of bragging about what were obviously his family’s most valued possessions. Bob was forthright and unashamed.

The majority of my time that summer was spent with a group revolving around Matt Bird, his brother Lee and this kid Sean who was a year younger than me and lived across the street from them. They listened to a lot of Poison. I used to try to decipher their lyrics, which I had been told were Satanic, but had no luck. They also played a lot of Nintendo, which I was embarrassingly bad at. Our favorite game was Mike Tyson’s Punchout. The best Nintendo player was a girl; I think she must have been older than the rest of us, but now have no idea who she was. Girls would remain mostly mysterious to me for several more years.

My first day at the new school was overwhelming. A classmate I hadn’t met before also named Andrew (with the last name Mercer) began picking on me when I was still at the bus stop. The seventh graders’ lockers were in a basement, and when we got to the school I was relieved to discover my locker was next to Matt’s. I happily shared my excitement about this with him, and immediately this short kid I’d later learn went by Curious George jeered from behind us, “Hey Matt- you know that nerd?” Then he turned to me, “Hey kid, you’re going to have to move your locker down the hall. Only the cool kids have their lockers in front.”

I glanced down the hall and saw that I could move to be nearer to Bob, but to this day, the best way to get me to not do something is to tell me I have to do it. I turned my back to the heckler and twirled the combination of the lock on my locker. At my old school, the lock was built into the lockers, so once you entered the combination you simply lifted the door handle to open them. These lockers instead had a lock that passed through a hole that you had to remove before lifting the handle. Not understanding how it worked, I attempted to open this new locker like the ones I was used to while Curious George became annoyed that I was pretending to ignore him. “Are you going to move your locker or what?” he continued, as he pushed my fumbling hand aside and twirled the combination lock so I’d have to start over. “You’d better not be here when I get back,” he finally threatened and left.

Matt had been there right next to me the whole time, nervously ignoring the proceedings. I re-entered the combination and tried lifting the handle again to know avail. Having no alternative, I sheepishly turned to Matt and asked, “How do you open theses lockers?” He angrily removed the lock from the locker and gave me a look that I knew meant, Never talk to me again, you idiot.

To this day, whenever I get flustered I suddenly become unreasonably disoriented. I spent the rest of that day wandering around the school utterly lost, wondering how the hallways kept moving locations. Eventually a teacher would look at my schedule and guide me to my next class, but, even as the book count piled up after every new class period, I never found that basement locker room again for the remainder of the day.

I wasn’t flustered for being picked on. I have this inexplicable fearless stubbornness that I guess must be in my genes that at this point had accumulated 12 years of experience at ignoring being yelled at. (I never did move the location of my locker.) I was, however, mad at myself for stupidly not knowing how to open my locker. I don’t like not being able to figure out how to do things that should be obvious. More importantly, I was confused by having experienced something that was new to me- betrayal. Matt would never again behave as my friend. Matt was the good-looking, relatively athletic kid that we were all supposed to be aspiring to be like. I recognized, though, that his disloyalty represented the worst in humanity. I resolved to never be like him, even as I understood I hadn’t been given the choice.

In contrast, neither Jason the skateboarder nor Bob the delinquent ever did me any wrong. Years later I would have a highly enjoyable time reconnecting with Bob as we were thrown into the same Driver’s Ed car. Bob was also the first person I knew who got a tattoo- a tribute to another kid in our school who died. I thought it was awesome, and he proudly displayed it on his arm even as our classmates expressed their disgust. You see, I went to a school where ridicule and bullying was the norm. With the remarkable exception of Charlie Husak, without whose protection I probably would have been seriously injured, the most popular kids were the ones who picked on me the most. The nicest kids at that school were the ones who rebelled against it.

I was surprised when I received an invitation from Robert Newton to be his friend on Facebook awhile ago, but gladly accepted his invitation. I was saddened to learn from it when he suddenly and unexpectedly died earlier this year.

Mr. Fjelly-belly

During our last week of high school, the principal gathered a group of seniors together for a meeting. We scrunched around a table in Burdett Christiansen’s classroom. (As there were three teachers with that same last name at our school, we informally called this one Burdett.) The principal, who we all called Mr. Fjelly-belly behind his back, stated that the purpose for this meeting was to get feedback from us as to how we thought our scholastic experience might be better improved. Having for the most part deplored the experience, I had a few ideas. Probably because we were in his room, I started out by suggesting, “Two of our required courses and one popular elective are all taught by Burdett Christiansen, and all he does in all three is repeat the exact same anecdotes.”

Perturbed, Mr. Fjelly-belly responded, “Okay, let’s just stop right there. Mentioning specific teacher’s names puts me in an awkward position. Let’s try to limit this to things that can be done in general.” I thought I had done something wrong, and felt both guilty and stupid. I remained silent for the remainder of the discussion, even while he explained the decision to build a second gymnasium instead of an auditorium.

In the ensuing years, I have often been puzzled by strong reactions to elicited answers. My stance is, don’t ask the question if you don’t want the answer. My working hypothesis for an explanation is that what people are doing in these situations is seeking agreement, validation and praise. I don’t really see the use of such things; they don’t provide means to improve and you can’t eat them. I rarely trust anything positive anyone has to say about anything. Frankly, compliments piss me off, because they imply the deliverer assumes I need one.

People are obsessed with affirmation. Most can’t make two consecutive statements that go unacknowledged, even when no response is necessary, without worrying whether they are being ignored. We can be saying the most trivial remark known to man and still become disoriented without an “amen.” Odds are high that anything you have to say isn’t worth the effort, but kudos to you for making the attempt. (Does that make you feel better, you fucking pansy?)

Humans are wired with an innate fear of inferiority. This is what compels us to improve. I see no reason to hide from it behind a veil of unwarranted applause. As there is no difference between the two, even warranted praise is meaningless. It is up to each to decide for himself whether he tried his best, because in the end that’s the best we can do. I guess that’s the point I’m trying to make- in the end we must judge our actions for ourselves, without forgetting that we exist in a world with others.

Probably praise-seekers realize their incompetence to a degree, and are testing to determine whether others have picked up on it. Who cares? Unless we’re talking quantum mechanics, existence does not depend upon perception.

I honestly prefer criticism. Little is more useful than discovering and accepting ways to progress. While most will gladly be complimentary but dishonest, only manipulative egoists or twisted humorists will be deceitfully critical. These former assholes are best avoided, although even their insults can contain an element of truth.

Realizing something I can improve on is a good thing- I enjoy working at perfecting a task. In fact, that is what I most like to do for fun. I don’t like making mistakes, but I don’t mind apologizing when I do. I don’t understand the resistance to do so many seem to have, as if admitting mistakes is some kind of weakness. I also don’t care about being perfect; I don’t know what that term means anyway.