I would not trade working with kids for anything.
There are three things that I get from them they that keeps me going back to my day job. Their sense of joy, abandon, and humor. Personally, I feel like the luckiest chick alive because I get little notes on my desk that say “I love you� all the time. The kids I know just aren't afraid to give you that. I think they are much more afraid of being without it.
They lack the bitterness of adults who've been told too many times that something won't work or isn't good enough or all the other excuses that make us do nothing instead of something.
So whenever I can show them that I love them too, I do. Yesterday, I went to one of their things, which they had collectively and individually worked on for a long time. There is a really loose community of kids who hang out and support each other. It's pretty much composed of local high school and college kids, but there are even some middle schoolers that are “cooler� than the kids who listen to fifty cent. Not that I don't listen to fifty cent, but I'm not a cool kid (except for on Saturdays, and then I play one at the local club).
So three years ago our town looked like this: no club for kids, no local theater, and no university (just a college that was tied to the southern baptist association). At the end of this year (all time is measured in a nine month school calendar to me -- June, July, and August don't really count. They are the land of lost time) we will have a great little music scene that draws kids in from two states and several towns, a theater that also has a little bitty art gallery, and a University that is no longer associated with the southern baptists.
Yesterday, the kids celebrated their success, which can not and will not ever be measured by a test that some stupid old fuck gives out.
Having made it to the stupid old fuck stage of life, I got wasted the night before and could barely drag ass over to my brother's to have breakfast before going to hang out with the kids. By the time my lungs were functioning (too much smoking always accompanies too much drinking), the kids had already protested a bunch of idiots, talked to the associated press, set up signs in the park, and gotten their equipment over to the club because it looked like rain was going to cause problems with the free outdoor concert they were giving -- the kids are alright; they really have little need for stupid old fucks, but they sure are gracious when we show up. I mean they were genuinely excited to see me and my brother and were like “Oh, my god, your rainbow jelly bracelets are awesome, where did you get them?�
I'm sneaking my plastic brick in the wall ring to one of the girls whose mother has no choice but to work at Wal-mart; she told me she liked it when I was unfortunately ordering my Dr. Pepper (I guess I'm a pepper too). My brother works with her, so on Monday he's going to slip it to her.
First and foremost, the religious weirdo from Kansas turned out to be a chick with her children. These were the craziest fuckers I have yet to see. Shirley something is her name. She has been on Howard Stern, that speaks volumes. She was there protesting the University's graduation because this year, one lesbian student said, “Naw, fuck this. We want a gay student union.�
And she got it, which meant the school lost the support of the Southern Baptist Convention, and its money, and I say, good riddance. For one thing, the coolest religion teacher I've ever known, he looks like freaking Moses, I mean Charlton Heston, although he's much, much cooler. So much so that he's actually an archeologist that goes to Israel and teaches the facts of religion, not the doctrine of religion; anyway, they wanted to fire him because of a letter or essay that he wrote. So the college placed on probation, but he didn't loose his job. And then the young lesbians wanted to be public about their relationships, and that just really was the straw that cluster-fucked the old camel toe, I mean, back.
So Shirley Strangewoman who hates fags and believes she is the voice of god (or her father) showed up with seven other people; she didn't even have twelve disciples, what was she thinking?
The kids had gotten together over seventy folks, and were like, “Dude, this is really sad.�
I mean, “She's got her kids out there.� And by that they meant her own flesh and blood, little children!
The twelve-year-old spawn of Strangewoman when asked what, if anything, she had to say, said, “Um . . . God hates fags.�
She would have had a lot more fun with us.
We got to meet the very hot cast of True West, whose posters are causing a stink because one of the hotties (who by the way did not know who Gertrude Stein was when the trivia question, what was Gertrude Stein's nickname for her lover, was asked during Who Wants to be a Poor Kid Going to a Free Show?) has his hand down his pants. But we'll all forgive him for showing up in town, shirtless.
We also heard a youth counselor's view on what the Bible really has to say about homosexuality, and I give the guy a lot of credit; he‘s from Lynchburg, home of the ailing Jerry Falwell, which means, he‘s got to have some balls, big ones. But if you've ever seen Donnie Darko, and you remember Patrick Swayze's character, then you know what I think youth counselors sound like. Much respect to them, really, but it will always be very hard for me not to laugh. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm laughing.
But the best thing we heard were the bands.
When the first one started, I leaned over to my brother and said, “These kids look like a cross between the Kings of Leon and The Killers.�
He nodded, which means, “I stopped paying attention to what you think about music when I introduced you to Phantom Planet and you said, ‘They're okay‘.�
The best band, well my favorite, looked like themselves, a bunch of oddly put together kids who followed the introductory remark that today, which was yesterday, was the anniversary of Hitler's death and who closed with "Blitzkrieg Bop.�