My high school makes me proud. Every time we get in the national news it is for something absurd like this, when I was there it was for the “sleep in” in protest of us having the shortest school year in the developed world. How that is determined, I have no idea. Lincoln High School students exist on a different plane. Here’s the Death Star of senior pranks, in a good way…
APRIL 24–Oregon educators want law enforcement officials to probe who was responsible for mailing parents a letter on school letterhead suggesting that they supply students with alcohol at post-prom parties. The letter, a copy of which you’ll find below, was sent this week to families of students at Portland’s Lincoln High School. Recipients of the missive were urged to consider opening their homes this Saturday for parties as “a safe, secure place for students to have fun,” adding if adults “provide the alcohol, you can have peace of mind knowing that they did not acquire it illegally. Condoms were included with the letters–which were written on Portland Public Schools stationery–since “STD epidemics have spread through other high school communities and we want to prevent such an outbreak as best we can.” The letter was purportedly written by “The Lincoln High School Faculty and Administration.” Officials do not know how the letter’s creator(s) got access to school mailing lists. And while rather well written, the letter did include obvious clues that it was a hoax, including a supposed recommendation from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. The state agency, the letter claimed, “stated that a fifth of alcohol, like Hennessy Cognac, is sufficient supply for at least 8 adults. One can assume that for 17 to 18 year old individuals, one fifth can probably be spread out to 4 students. Considering our reputation (Drinkin’ Lincoln), in some cases one fifth is only enough for a single person.”
Click through to see the letter. It’s even well written.
I’ve been going through some old mini DV’s from senior year of high school and I have unearthed some rare and valuable gems. Sam, Bryce, Paul, and I made a rap video for our Film/Lit class about the book/movie the Beach. (I’ll upload the entire video when I find it.) None of us are good at rapping by any means, but Bryce really took us to new lows. And I mean that in the best way possible. Awesome lows!
For my birthday in November, my roommates threw me a middle school dance/90’s themed party. No trimmings were spared, right down to the authentic EZ Bake Oven and a thoughtfully worded Ricky Martin book in Spanish on one side and English on the other. The party, as it were, was a god damn epic success, a Puff Daddy party on our scaled-down scale to measure parties. People had fun and would fondly look back on it as one of the most successful parties in our quickly dwindling college career. It was so much fun, in fact, that the decision came down from the house patriarch to have a 90’s Party Part Duh. Duh obviously being an ever so “90’s” catch phrase, and an ever so clever play on Deux. (One of my many contributions, although I fear I may have stolen that joke from some VH1 show that is even more wistful and nostalgic than I am.)
To the first 90’s party I rocked a pretty excellent vest over my 1990 Western Conference Champions Trail Blazers t-shirt. (Yes, I’m fiercely proud.) I felt I walked the fine line between being festive and trying too hard quite well. It was a subtle statement, yet one I hope resonated. When the time came for me to drudge up a new outfit in the style of the 1990’s, my mind immediately filled with visions of a vest sequel. The fashion gods conferred with the thrift store gods and they decided to smile upon me. Not only did I find a vest of amazing build and design, it came with matching shorts to boot, all for the low low price of $2.99. Ignoring the fact that this was a women’s getup proved to be easy as well. The fact of the matter is, this thing was bright yellow with a vegetable print. I would wear almost anything that has a vegetable print, be it for women, or babies, or transvestites, or whatever. If it has a vegetable print, odds are good I will wear it.
My joy was tempered only slightly, I’d say I was 3% less excited, when I returned home and found that the shorts don’t come close to fitting, unless I wear them at dangerously high levels, which in turn leaves my, um, manhood dangerously close to a reveal that almost nobody wants. Nevertheless I wore the vest proudly and loudly, sans matching shorts. Again, I felt like I walked that elusive line between still participating and screaming my 90’s-ness. Accessorize, don’t revolutionize. The vest went over well at the party. The vegetable print delighted people, as a vegetable print tends to.
The thing is, since the party, I have been taking heavy criticism about my choice of 90’s costume. People don’t see the connection to the 90’s and some even have the gall to accuse me of not putting effort into my weapon of choice. Quite frankly, these accusations are unfounded and unfair.
First of all, like I said, this was not some outfit I just had laying on my bedroom floor. No, the thrift store stars had to align for me to find this certifiable treasure of a vest. And as I’ve explained twice now, it takes lots of thinking to be subtle and still festive. I could have easily bought the pink one piece ski suit at the very same thrift store I bought the vest. Ignoring the fact that it is more 80’s than 90’s, a pink one piece ski suit is fairly awesome, but that would have been the lazy route. Any asshole can be outrageous, as the saying goes subtly is godly.*
I don’t know what it is about them, but I feel that vests are an integral part of the quintessential 90’s experience. Admittedly, I have no data to back this up, but I would almost certainly bet that vests were worn more in the years of 1990-99 than any other 10 years in the history of our world. Vests are ubiquitous in the unofficial official television shows of the 1990’s, Friends and Seinfeld. Matthew Perry and the ever melancholic David Schwimmer embraced the vest, the great Jerry Seinfeld loved the vest. These three men are powerful symbols of the 90’s. We looked to them for guidance as well as a good joke. How can a vest not go hand in hand with the 90’s? How this would not be immediately apparent to somebody is beyond me.
And as for the vegetable print, well that is just undeniably awesome.
New Year’s eve is one of my favourite holidays.* You can’t dislike a holiday where it’s main traditions seem to be drinking and kissing people. You just can’t. Me being the traditionalist that I am, I made sure to fully partake in both.
Due to my new found “legal age-ness” it was obvious that it was time to experience a New Year’s eve with the people. And by the people I mean downtown at the bars with the rabble. On one hand, this means I don’t end up at sketchy parties where avoiding the two guys waving guns around that won’t let us leave becomes my prime objective. On the other hand, frequenting the bars on New Years means spending a significant amount of money that I don’t have (and haven’t been earning all semester). Cover charges, drinks, cabs, delicious snacks at 3 AM, etc. I decided that I’d rather be poor(er than I already am) than shot, and ventured down to the bars.
Bryce, Brent, Sam, and I met up at Brent’s house and drank a few bottles of champagne with Brent’s parents while discussing our future. It is still a kick in the pants to drink with people’s parents. The more champagne I drank, the more fantastical plans I came up with for my future. Brent’s parents probably think I have certain fame and fortune waiting for me as soon as I graduate. Either that or I am firmly rooted in my own fantasy land, which may be closer to the truth. After multiple bottles of bubbly and multiple boxes of Cheez-Its, it was time to begin the carousing.
And carouse we did. After much peer pressure, Bryce agreed to designate himself for driving, as he was slated to fly to Vegas at 7 in the morning this morning, so the next morning at the time. We piled into his car, made about 100 remarks about how comfortable his leather Jeep seats are. (After much debate, we came to the conclusion that his seats were more comfortable than a hot tub full of pillows, but less comfortable than the same seats would be if they were made of smooth baby skin instead of cow hide.)
The downtown portion of the night started out at the Matador, where we were extremely overdressed but immediately remedied any social awkwardness by buying a healthy dose of tequila shots. From there the night quickly devolved, and I will spare you most of the details, but we ended up at a few more bars and closed things down at the Gypsy at 2:30 where I ran into my cousin Sam.** (Among other things, in between we made many drunken phone calls and picked up Chevigny.) Sam and I have randomly run into each other something like 4 out of the last 5 New Year’s eve’s, plus we both had been drinking heavily at the time, so the conclusion was drawn that running into each other was the greatest moment of both of our lives. Which, at the time, it actually may have been.
I had a point to this story when I began writing it. Somehow that point was lost because I had too much fun describing the glory of my evening. Which sort of brings me back to my point. New Year’s eve was so much fun. I spent the night with great friends in the best city on earth. I think there is something to be said to the “these are the best years of our lives” brand of thinking. I really think they might be. And almost certainly they will be looked back on very fondly. There is little to no responsibility for most of us. Yes, we have to graduate, keep an eye on the our future, and work some hours too, but that’s nothing compared to being married, raising a family, paying mortgages, or having a career. That’s not to say that someday doing those things won’t be really great, but for now I’m happy where I am in life. I’ll grow up at some point, 2008 may even see that sea change begin to take shape in me, but at the moment I will concede to my inner Peter Pan.
My brain seems to have shut down as of late, and no brilliant essay ideas have come to mind. (Note: My brain will have to be rudely awakened soon when I start chopping wood on this statistics correspondence course I’m taking.) Thus, here is another YouTube goody. It snowed here yesterday and is supposed to snow a ton tomorrow. This is from last year, here is how we Portlandites drive in the snow. Everyone crashes, sort of like when it rains in California.
I especially liked the first guy who looked like he was getting all Twisted Metal on us and actually trying to hit every car that he could.-John
Today it took me 3.5 hours to go 45 miles. I hate Los Angeles.
I’m midwayish up the coast, to my ultimate destination of, of course, my beloved Portland. I think it was the ridiculous traffic I hit today, but for some reason I feel stressed, as if I’m going to have a pop final tomorrow or something. Which would not be fun.
I’m staying with some family friends, people who’ve known me since I was mere months old. In fact, right now I am sharing a bunk bed with their 5 year old son. I called top bunk. I’m ruthless and cold blooded. They are still a youngish couple, it must be weird to have seen me grow from a matter of months old, to me now, 22 years old with this strapping body of mine. Hell, it’s weird to me that their son, who currently sleeps below me, is 5 now. I remember meeting him when I was 17 or 18 and he was nothing but a baby. (It blows my mind how long ago 18 years old seems.) Most people would get a warm sense of nostalgia and wiseness from this, all I get out of it is remembering that the passing of time scares me more than anything else I can think of. Has anybody (other than Adam Sandler in Click) invented the pause button for life yet?
Where I am staying right now is absolutely gorgeous. Like Rachel McAdams gorgeous. I’m in Los Olivos, don’t bother trying to look it up on Google Maps because it’s not even big enough to be there. I’m about 25 miles north of Santa Barbara. We are in a valley and there is nothing around. This is real living. There are no street lights, so as to see the stars better. Seriously, it’s a city ordinance. I spend all my time hating Orange County and LA, and I forget that there can be this just overwhelmingly beautiful aspect of California. Even a sense of romanticism. I’m more afraid of getting married and settling down than I am of getting attacked by a shark while I’m body surfing (and I’m very afraid of that), but being here with these amazing people makes me hopeful for the future. I think it would be pretty fucking fantastic to have a quiet house and a quiet life here with my young family. (My fleeting moment of optimism is hereby ruined by me remembering any and all of my commitment issues. As many of my ex-girlfriends will angrily attest, I tend to keep one foot out the door.)
I guess it isn’t California I hate so much, it’s the people (the sheer number of them), and the materialism, and the god damn hopelessness. Buying 22 inch wheels for your car may be the highlight of your year, and if it is I just feel bad for you. Stop cutting me off on the highway, I’m already going 75, and you won’t get there any faster. Paying $350 for your jeans might make you feel important, but it just makes me glad I spent $45 on mine. Most importantly, stop being entrepreneurs for a second and enjoy the trees and the dirt and the air. Everything does not have to be a strip mall. I realize that that last paragraph may be the most cliché thing I have ever written, but it really sort of sums it up for me. For that (the clichés and the sentiment) I apologize. (I just read, and re-read, and re-read (again) this paragraph and I am honestly ashamed I wrote it. It is terrible. This is why you don’t blog while drinking. I may think I have the depth of Socrates, but really I have the depth of the shallow end of Wilson Pool.)
Upon review, this whole essay is a garbled mess of too much honesty, too much contemplation, poor, clichéd writing, and far too much emotion. Let’s blame the red wine and the open spaces. They both go straight to my head.
I apologize in advance for annoying and liberal use of strategically italicized words.
Ever since my negative monstrous list of hatred, I have tried to stay relatively positive. I’m sometimes very cynical, but I try and keep it pointed at me, rather than the world. Plus, nobody wants to read about things I don’t like. I don’t like them, why would you? That said, it’s time to complain. I am back at school and I want nothing more than to be back home again.
I unlocked the door to my apartment, went upstairs, dropped my bags randomly in the middle of the room, which obviously is the best place for them, and flopped down on my bed. It took me all of 3 seconds to realize that my bed doesn’t hold a candle to my bed, and by my bed, I mean my bed back in Portland where I spent the better part of my first 18 years. This lack of candle holding may be completely unreasonable. The beds are similar sizes and levels of softness. Granted, my bed in California has significantly more dust on it than my bed, but admittedly that is completely my fault. My bed in California is also lower than my bed, but as neither is tall enough to impede me climbing in, I would argue that that is a neutral attribute. Overall though, there isn’t that much difference between my bed here and my bed and there certainly isn’t enough of a difference to warrant this unwarranted and unreasonable favoritism. Yet, here it is: my bed is so much better than my bed here.
As well, it’s for no real tangible reason. It’s more that my bed has become more than a bed for me. It’s a state of mind. It represents youth and happiness and innocence.* When I’m sleeping in my bed, I am home and that can only mean good things. It means the newspaper and good sugary cereal, preferably Marshmallow Mateys, is waiting for me downstairs. It means Little Mimi and Paul and Har Rai are usually somewhere close. It means my collection of swords** is protecting my room and my slumbering self. Most of all, it means my family is right nearby. My bed doesn’t necessarily make things great, but when I’m sleeping in my bed it almost always means that things are great.
At the risk of sounding like Harry in Spiderman who is constantly unreasonably angry at Peter Parker, my bed in California represents nothing good. In fact it may even represent evil. First of all, it’s used, which is weird and I try to avoid thinking about too much. Second, aforementioned dust problem. Third, an excessive amount of mornings in my California bed have been hungover mornings, which lead to hungover days, which leads to an entirely unproductive John Vieira. Fourth, no bed, unless it is made of cardboard boxes, should be within 50 feet of a constant stream of vagrants, such is the state of the alley behind my apartment. I wake up with hobos. If you’ve followed me thus far, then yes, that means that my California bed represents binge drinking, squalor, and homelessness.
I know I’m only offering problems here and no solutions (other than to wash my sheets), and not for a minute do I think that’s acceptable. I know it’s unreasonable, and to a lesser extent, I know my love for my bed is unreasonable.*** Which I guess is the theme of this essay. To be honest though, I’m ok with it. Now I’m off to inhale dust while I sleep in my bed of evil.
*Innocence may or may not be an inappropriate adjective to use to describe my bed.
**Plus one battle axe.
***Even more unreasonable: the amount of times I have used the word unreasonable in this entry.
More important life lessons learned in my Pacific Northwest Thanksgiving Voyage of Discovery 2007. I know it’s wordier than a Fall Out Boy song title, but it’s the working title for this voyage for now.
11/18/2007, Day 4:
Lesson 1: Eating a sandwich for every meal will make you a better person.
Lesson 2: Shawn Bradley is one of my top 10 favorite NBA players ever.
Lesson 3: A Mini Cooper knows, and tells you, when it will snow before it even snows.
Lesson 4: If there is a guy on the treadmill next to you is speaking random Russian words and wearing jeans (and sweating through them) while he runs it makes your run somewhat surreal and makes those 5 miles go by much quicker.
Lesson 5: Sometimes using “and” too much in a sentence is unavoidable.
Lesson 6: My brother is one of the funniest people I know.
Lesson 7: Nobody in my family knows who Lester Bangs is. It is safe to say that none of us will ever feel the need to listen to anything by The Human League, or refer to ourselves as a “white nigger”.
11/19/2007, Day 5:
Lesson 1: Everywhere I go, people think I am in high school (or that my sister is older than me). I can’t figure this out.
Lesson 2: Levi’s sizes are oddly inconsistent.
Lesson 3: Wearing sweaters in appropriate temperatures makes everything I do a little bit better.
Lesson 4: Millions and millions of dollars was spent to renovate the downtown Meier and Frank and turn it into Macy’s, but it seems exactly the same.
Lesson 5: Someday I want to be famous enough to be one of those B/C/D list celebrities in the Gap advertising, but no more famous than that.
Lesson 6: Finding corduroys is much harder than it should be.
Lesson 7: The Ape Caves in Washington don’t actually have anything to do with apes.
Lesson 8: Togo’s is far superior to Subway. I never thought I would ever think anything is far superior to Subway.
Lesson 9: Watching a Blazer game on TV is really a much better cinematic experience than watching a Blazer game as an ESPN.com GameCast. Which isn’t to say I don’t still love The World Leader.
Lesson 10: The administration at the MAC are still jerks, or at least have jerks among them.
Lesson 11: Sometimes I am absolutely terrible at basketball.
I am home for Thanksgiving this week, but in the spirit of full disclosure, to pull off a 10 day Thanksgiving break, I had to miss a day’s worth of classes. I know, not a lot, but as my three day school schedule and my zero day work schedule already make me feel worthless enough, I have decided to turn my trip home into a Voyage of Discovery.* I will make a conscience effort to learn things each day, and as they will almost certainly** be important life lessons, I will be documenting them.
Things I have learned since I’ve come home: 11/15/2007, Day 1:
Lesson 1: I will eschew all social norms and any sense of financial responsibility to buy those mini-booze bottles on the airplane. To me, drinking at 2 PM is acceptable if your drink comes in a miniature bottle about on a 1:32 scale, but only if the price scale doesn’t quite match that and is more along the lines of 1:3. Incidentally, just the fact that I’m old enough was reason enough for me.
Lesson 2: Calling it a Cuba Librè makes a rum and coke sound much fancier, and you much more sophisticated. Actually, this probably applies to almost anything that uses an accented letter.
Lesson 3: Food eaten at the house you grew up in, will taste markedly better than the same food eaten anywhere else. Especially the Fontainebleau apartments.
11/16/2007, Day 2:
Lesson 1: While certainly less masochistic, sleeping in a room that is mostly dust free really does wonders for my sleeping patterns. Also, the fact that I don’t have a constant stream of vagrants outside my window when I am home helps.
Lesson 2: The sense of juvenation felt by sleeping until 11 far outweighs any sense of lost productivity.
Lesson 3: Having two pronged outlets instead of three pronged outlets throughout my entire house serves no purpose whatsoever, other than to frustrate me and limit my number of Facebook visits.
Lesson 4: Considering their age (not to mention their vigor and vim!), somebody I talked to is way too excited about their future retirement home, although it does sound cool. The cars get stacked like Lil’ Bow Wow’s Hulk Car in The Fast and The Furious 3: Tokyo Drift.
Lesson 5: If your wiry 16 year old brother can beat you in arm wrestling, you should never let that fact be documented on film.
Lesson 6: Spending too much time in southern California can make you exponentially more susceptible to cold temperatures, which will undoubtably lead to ruthless taunting by any siblings you may have.
11/17/2007, Day 3:
Lesson 1: Never, under any circumstances, should you ever wake up at 5:40 AM. The newspaper won’t even have arrived yet.
Lesson 2: Cereal, like revenge, is a dish best served cold.
Lesson 3: If you ignore lesson 1 and accidentally do wake up at 5:40 AM, after you have eaten breakfast be sure to go back to sleep until noon.
Lesson 4: When running up a mountain in a rainstorm (seriously), make sure you have a way to contact the people who came with you that are walking up the mountain behind you. Otherwise you may wind up wandering around the paths for 2 hours calling for each other.
Lesson 5: Telling somebody that sandwiches are your passion can garner some weird looks.
Lesson 6: Freezer-burned ice cream is still ice cream, and therefore still delicious.
Lesson 7: The Ninja Turtles Pizza Power board game is the best board game ever made, rivaled in it’s complexity only by Chess.
Lesson 8: I knew this before, but I feel I need to reiterate and add to it: Boggle is the homeless man’s thinking game, Scrabble is the poor man’s thinking game. Rubik’s Race is the smart man’s thinking game, Terrace is the genius’ thinking game.
More as the days go by…
*I have been on three Voyages of Discovery before, although each time I went around the world. This one promises to be markedly less impactful (which isn’t to say it won’t be very enjoyable).
**The validity of this is debatable.
spared, right down to the authentic EZ Bake Oven and a thoughtfully worded Ricky Martin book in Spanish on one side and English on the other. The party, as it were, was a god damn epic success, a Puff Daddy party on our scaled-down scale to measure parties. People had fun and would fondly look back on it as one of the most successful parties in our quickly dwindling college career. It was so much fun, in fact, that the decision came down from the house patriarch to have a 90’s Party Part Duh. Duh obviously being an ever so “90’s” catch phrase, and an ever so clever play on Deux. (One of my many contributions, although I fear I may have stolen that joke from some VH1 show that is even more wistful and nostalgic than I am.)
statement, yet one I hope resonated. When the time came for me to drudge up a new outfit in the style of the 1990’s, my mind immediately filled with visions of a vest sequel. The fashion gods conferred with the thrift store gods and they decided to smile upon me. Not only did I find a vest of amazing build and design, it came with matching shorts to boot, all for the low low price of $2.99. Ignoring the fact that this was a women’s getup proved to be easy as well. The fact of the matter is, this thing was bright yellow with a vegetable print. I would wear almost anything that has a vegetable print, be it for women, or babies, or transvestites, or whatever. If it has a vegetable print, odds are good I will wear it.
The vest went over well at the party. The vegetable print delighted people, as a vegetable print tends to.
I don’t know what it is about them, but I feel that vests are an integral part of the quintessential 90’s experience. Admittedly, I have no data to back this up, but I would almost certainly bet that vests were worn more in the years of 1990-99 than any other 10 years in the history of our world. Vests are ubiquitous in the unofficial official television shows of the 1990’s, Friends and Seinfeld. Matthew Perry and the ever melancholic David Schwimmer embraced the vest, the great Jerry Seinfeld loved the vest. These three men are powerful symbols of the 90’s. We looked to them for guidance as well as a good joke. How can a vest not go hand in hand with the 90’s? How this would not be immediately apparent to somebody is beyond me.