The Young and the Electric

In my observations as a teenaged spy for the outside world, I've noticed many a strange thing. Teenagers, it seems, are in fact strange and foreign beings that live by their own social conventions and hierarchies. They are outsiders from the rest of society, which I suppose explains why hundreds of thousands of fights are fought between teen and adult daily. True, they're both players in the same game, but each one is playing by different rules. Clashes are simply expected.

In terms of everything else, though, teenagers are just like little adults only with little capacity for conversation.

Yet over the past few weeks, I've noticed something strange. Something I'm surprised has never occurred to me before, but now that it's here, it seems very, very real.

The rules of romance in the teenaged world are shifting. Love used to be a thrill; quick glances during Chemistry, notes passed in the lunch line. Sure, a date was as expected as a cell phone by the rest of the teen scene, but at the same time it was exciting, a wild chase from first period all the way to seventh. Romance was sharing a stolen rum & coke at a ska show. Love was painting pictures of each other on pieces of rotting wood and hanging them above your bed. Teenagers experienced love in its most basic, primitive form, and no adult can ever dispute that.

But now, love is something different.

Granted, teenaged romances haven't exactly had a long-standing history of longevity, but relationships seem to be getting shorter, faster, to the point. Love is not movie stars and rock songs anymore. Girls aren't the daydreamers, the picket-fencers, the lovers of upholstered upholstery and 2.5 kids. Love in the eyes of a sixteen year old girl used to be sparkling soda-pop showers and the ground opening up beneath their feet. Love was epic and new. It was top ten songs on the radio and kissing under the blacklight. Now, love is a temporary tattoo.

Love in the teenaged world is a boomerang of gossip and kissing both girls and boys in the school's willow tree. It's about always riding shotgun and never having both feet on the ground. Love is about lip-gloss stains on lapels and making out to the Plain White T's. And it will never be about caring for a person ever again.

Amidst this mess of algebra and infidelity emerges a new brand of teenagers unlike anything you've ever seen. Teens that will crash cars just to be the center of attention and break hearts under the stinging syringe of stiletto heels.

These are the new romantics. 

These teens believe solely in prom dates and arm-candy and follow the Carrie Bradshaw perspective of sex, lies, and a damn good story to tell. The new romantics believe in reconciling through others, a playground she-said-he-said for the high school era, and they will always date the undateable just to say that they climbed that mountain and stuck that tiny tropical umbrella into the top. The new romantics are children of excess. They're slam-dancers, they're flirters, they'll sing your praises one minute and as soon as they've finished they'll shank you in the neck. They are fierce, flawed, and fabulous. They are teenagers, god-dammit, and nothing can hold them back.

And this is what makes them great.

No other branch of American society could ever get away with such vulgarity, yet the new romantics can bat their eyelashes and not only get away with it but also get a free drink and a new Myspace friend. I truly believe that this is what makes such teenagers so misunderstood: they simplify things to the lowest common denominator. And adults don't like that. If a problem arises, the new romantics will look at you blankly and say "Well, we'll have to fix it." And they will. Grown ups like the complicated, the complex, the impossible. Even if they really can't handle it, at least it makes them feel like real, live adults instead of just twelve year olds struggling to walk in size nine shoes.

Adults forget to step back from their formica desks and button-up shirts and see the world for what it really is. They ignore what the new romantics shake like a martini tumbler every night. Adults forget about fun. Sure, if they wanted to have fun they could always go see a Jim Carrey movie or go drinking with co-workers at the local Chili's, but what about real fun? Limitless, worry-free fun? New romantic kind of fun?

Ladies and gentlemen of the work world, listen up, because you only get one shot at life and being irresponsible is the best part of this hundred years we get on Earth. Go out into the world, folks, not as parents and siblings and employees of the month, but as prom queens and high-rollers and class presidents and jocks. Go out as the kid voted Most Likely to Start a Revolution. Go out as surfers by day and poets by night. Go out into this great big world, ladies and gentlemen, taking a cue from your local Angela Hayes and Jeff Spicoli, and leave the house not as grown-ups or adults, but as new romantics.


Extra-Curricular: Tilly and the Wall - Nights of the Living Dead
Photo by Cybele Malinowski

Final Smash

In lieu of a formal post, (that will be coming later today, I promise) I thought I should provide you fine ladies and gentlemen with further proof that links teenagers and batshit crazy.

After getting the go-ahead from assistant principles that probably had a reaction very similar to, "Sure. Whatever." my notorious art school held RADD yesterday, Rocking Against Destructive Decisions. Giant vinyl signs were posted around the area, proclaiming "Just Say No to Drugs, Alcohol, Sex!" (To honor the occasion, I know many a teen who celebrated by smoking pot outside the school gate and enjoying the free Taco Bell RADD provided, but that's neither here nor there.)

But wait! It gets better! I don't know if all you sunlight-seeing adults are aware or not, but on March 9th Super Smash Brothers Brawl (abbreviated Brawl for those with a short attention span) was released for the Wii, and therefore havoc ensued. In fact, most kids I know only stopped playing to go to school and maybe take a shower. Okay, maybe just to go to school.

Except for these kids.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. These fine individuals decided to break free from the gamer stereotype and attend RADD. You know, go outside, get some fresh air, enjoy nature, socialize.

Oh, and play Brawl.

Behold!

When you spend forty hours a week with the official title of "Communications Major", you end up seeing a lot of weird-ass films trying very hard to be amusing. It's a good thing Jeremy Jones never disappoints. Jeremy is a friend of mine way out on the West coast, and I'm hardly exaggerating when I say he's the strangest full-grown man you'll ever meet (unless you've met Nick Nolte.) Regardless of his mental stability, he's damn funny.

I present to you the best minute-long parody of an O. Henry story from the early 20th century that you'll ever see, and I'm sure you've seen lots. Ladies and gentlemen, "The Gift."

A Short Word on the Holiday Hangover

I hold this firm believe that the only reason parents can get their kids to believe in God is because God deals in chocolate. Unlike Buddhism and Judaism which preach abstinence and fasting on major holy days, all Christian holidays involve gluttony and brightly-wrapped presents for kids to shred in the living room. In a child's mind, Jesus died for our sins only after he died to give us a day off from school and a new pair of shoes with skates on the bottom.

Enter: Easter. One of the strangest holidays we humans celebrate when you consider it because no one's really sure if we're praising miracles, grave robbers, or zombies. Any which way, we still look like a bunch of crazies because bunnies don't lay eggs and no natural egg I've ever seen has come out looking like the product of a retarded six year old with a Paas dying kit.

I've only been to church a few times in my short life, but most of the times I was forced to frequent were during major holidays, namely Easter. I'd sit in the back row between my grandmother and a six hundred pound motherlard with a bible in one hand and a bag of Popeyes chicken in the other, thinking that things couldn't possibly get any worse. But they would. On these fore-spoken major holidays, the pastor would always find it necessarily cute to wrangle every kid in the parish onto the stage so he could embarrass them for life and do his Bill Cosby impression. The kids would squirm around stage, not one of them standing completely still, and at the end of their personal torment receive a York peppermint patty as consolation for their embarrassment. Watching those kids was like watching the dog races. The second the pastor would stand up straight, get off his knees and back onto the adult level, those kids would bolt like Rusty had a Playstation tied around him. It was incredible, and even the ones almost in their teens who knew better felt the urge to bolt back to their pew.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the catalyst to my theory. Sure, most kids grow up still believing in whatever they were raised on. They still attend church or temple or mosque or whatever once they're twenty-somethings with a crop of kids of their own. But if you were to ask most why they take their kids to church, I guarantee you the astounding answer will be "to give them a better moral foundation." It's not sacrilege. It's modern day America. It's the everyman. Yes, there are real live Christians out there who go to church to pray and repent and not for the free wine and crackers, and to those people, good for you. At least those people know what they believe in, even if it does seem illogical to me. But the rest of America, it seems, is in it for the free swag. The kids like the chocolate. The parents like the Cuisinarts. And everybody in between has been doing it so long that they've forgotten why they do it anyway.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes this religion great. It's like Mardi Gras, only instead of beer and tits we get candy en mass! And really, what could be better?

Happy Easter hangover, ladies & gents.

B+ Movie

Being an honorary film student is hard work, especially when you hardly work. But nevertheless, I do occasionally stick to the stereotype of my high-school major and churn something out, even if it's not quite the highest of caliber. Actually, most things that come out of my school can hardly ever be categorized as the highest of caliber since the Communications major as a whole is known, quite simply, as the "Fallback Major". No one takes anything related to film seriously, and therefore when you're crammed in a mandatory group of six all sharing the same notion of wanting to just lie back and film their buddy skateboarding, it's pretty hard to get most anything done.

But surprisingly, at the beginning of this school year I got crammed in a group that consisted of only mostly slackers. Somehow, by a gift from the universe I was granted entry into a group that wanted to work. And work we did.

Despite the general problems of contending with other group members and with a malfunctioning Avid system, the end product didn't end up looking completely terrible. To be honest, though, it was hardly something that I was proud of and wanted my name attached to, yet our film teacher liked it and decided it needed to be seen. And thus it was entered in the Palm Beach International Film Festival's student showcase.

And now it's in the top fourteen.

Granted, I don't usually do things like this, but I'm genuinely excited at the idea of attaching an "award winning film" to my portfolio. Okay, so maybe I can only take credit for a couple of shots and full-credit for the editing, but I still bathe in the idea that its the editing that really makes a movie. So, ladies and gentlemen, here's where you come in.

The student showcase has already gone through preliminary judging, and now the votes rest with the people. So, vote! Vote so that I can finally bring my department out of the depths of obscurity. Vote so that I can show the world that I really do mean something, and that I won't take life sitting down. Vote so that I can go to school with bragging rights and look down on all those around me because, hey, do they have award-winning films?

Vote, people. Vote to show me how much you love me. Vote to put $2,000 in my pocket. Just vote, dammit.

Vote for Stairway to Heaven. 

And all your wildest dreams will come true.

Generation Why

Photo by Noah Stone

Whilst attending one of the many middle schools I found myself slam-dancing through in my early teens, I landed on one in particular that held my attention for at least a year or two, a record when it comes to my history of truancy and transfers. It was, you guessed it, a local art school that held its own in the national standings and even required auditions for all potential students. Much like my confidential art school now, it was highly competitive and a favorite for soccer moms who thought their ten year olds were Liza Minnelli when it came to all-around talent. (And really, they were just like Liza Minnelli on the talent-scale, coming in somewhere just above Courtney Love and Jeffree Star.)

But despite all of these whack-ass parents, it were the kids that really interested me. In my eighth grade year, a few weeks before I withdrew into the seclusion of a six month summer vacation, I observed something that completely blew my mind. Something so utterly odd and bemusing that I don't really know how I went so long without talking about it.

A phase passed over the school, a phase lasting god knows how long. A phase of pure terror and irony. Within five days, the school went from blissful, underaged normality to having the entire 6th grade population decked in jelly shoes and shirts that read, wait for it, "Made in the 80's."

Now I don't know if you folks are aware of this, but being in my current 15-year-old state means that I was born in 1992. Granted, I've never really been stellar in math class, but I do believe that means that these sixth graders of yore were born in 1994. That's one, two, three, four years after the eighties drew to a close, and by 1989 it was practically the grunge years anyway. Cobain didn't shoot himself in the head until 1994, and that's when these kids were still shitting in diapers and sucking down formula.

So, my question posed is this: When did the eighties become cool? Wasn't it just a few years ago that Generation Y was looking back on their parents and their John Hughes-like fashion sense with nothing less of disdain and confusion? Like a bad hangover, those who survived as a teenager in the eighties are now holding their heads and saying, "Wow, what was I thinking?" Meanwhile, their nine year olds are sneaking their preserved articles of clothing from the back of the closet and wearing them to school with a newfound sense of pride.

And not only are "vintage" eighties dresses and the like now extremely hip and groovy, but new eighties outfits are being made with sloganeering proclaiming just how cool the eighties are. Were. Will be?

Case and point: Miami Twice. Miami Twice is a royally wonderful used clothing store that any and all South Floridian teenagers know of, even those of years past. It's been around for forever and a day, and it still remains today, only with a slightly different twist. Then, it specialized in all things used, like a Goodwill boutique for young people with all the bedazzled t-shirts of Calico cats weeded out. Now, Miami Twice is a store that specializes in new things that look old, particularly those that are paralleled to eighties fashion. There is, in fact, one rack of real vintage dresses towards the front of the store, but the rest is replicas of Elvis Costello t-shirts and creepers, pre-faded and mass produced for public consumption.

I sometimes have to wonder if I'm stuck in some sort of Transylvanian time warp, or if kids really are just having a major generation-identification crisis. Granted, I have no room to talk about how great the eighties really were and how kids these days have no idea what the hell they're talking about. Like I said, I was born in 1992. I was raised on Sky Dancers and the Spice Girls. I didn't know who Joe Strummer was until the year he died, which was completely untimely and generally pretty unfair to my budding inner-audiophile. But even to me it seems awkward that while half of the teenaged population is progressing towards a lifestyle of Flavor Flav and MTV2, the younger ones are growing up on leg-warmers and Remote Control.

But don't let these pre-pubescent, cultural concubines fool you, ladies and gentlemen. The first day I saw some unfortunate eleven year old running around that fore-spoken middle school campus in a Clash shirt, I stopped him with the ever-pressing question. The kind of question that totally calls you out on a lie, and generally fucks you over in the end, even if you are just eleven.

"So, what's your favorite Clash song?"

He paused, staring at me like a deer in headlights. He knew his fate before he even answered. By responding, he only sealed the deal. Personally, I half expected him to turn on his heels and bolt out of my grasp as fast as he possibly could. Fight or flight, as the psychologists say.

"Uhm, I like them all?"

They may wear the shirts, the jeans, and the Doc Martens, but they honestly couldn't tell the Specials from the Smiths. It's all about the fashion. The look. The fact that some ten year old in charge of trendsetting somewhere is feeding them messages saying just how cool the eighties were. Nobody questions what the hell they're wearing, they simply go out to Urban Outfitters, but some jelly shoes, and skip on home. But that's fashion, isn't it? Kids are impressionable little shits, and if someone says that Miley Cyrus with her ever-pressing God complex has all the answers, then by Miley, so be it.

In case you haven't noticed, these kids weren't Made in the 80's as their t-shirts proclaim. In fact, most of them weren't even made in the early-nineties. They grew up with fast-access internet, satellite television, and rumblepacks as a standard, not an additional accessory. Yes, we all were. We are Generation Y, ladies and gentlemen, the generation of plenty, born into the world of milk & honey. And honestly, as a product of the grunge age, I'm completely happy with that. I think I turned out with some sense in my head, and hey, maybe not enough to guarantee me a spot in the Mensa brigade, but definitely enough to get me by.

Definitely enough to know that no, in fact, I was not made in the eighties.

Morning Blues.

Because I woke up this morning with a terrible head cold and a truck-load of immigrants cutting down every single hedge in the neighborhood at eight in the morning, it's safe to say there's no post for today.

Instead, here's A Tribe Called Quest. Can I Kick It?