Wisper's "all the little dumb things you've done" thread has made me think: You know that horrific method of torture known as the spirit assembly? In which the entire school's student body save about 20 kids gets off on trying to...errr...boost school spirit (whatever the hell that is?)? Well, I realized that each one of us here is probably one of those 20 kids who did everything they could to sneak out, tune out, or sabotage the spirit assemblies. That is the single unitive factor among every person who has ever passed through or lingered around this site. Can anyone prove my theory wrong?

Never tried to sneak out, but once participated in an "air jam" ( you remember those, getting up on stage and pretending you're playing the music). Well, usually it was Micheal Jackson, Wham! or some tepid Guns 'n' Roses. We did "Anti-social" by Anthrax. Since we were all outcasts anyway, it was our little gesture i suppose. People called me "Andy-Social" for a month later, but I actually got some props from some folks for having the guts to go and do a song about fifteen other people had even heard. We had also done other air jams with tunes like ST: Trip at the Brain, Overkill: Hello from the gutter, and Iron Maiden: the number of the beast (natch). My school was so damn out of th eloop that no one even knew what punk rock was, so metal was the big rebel music. The more extreme the metal, the farther from the social center you were. I was pretty damn far out, listening to Voivod and the Misfits, Black Flag and Metallica. I remember a huge argument I got into with some religous kid over the lyrics to "master of Puppets". He was convinced it was about satan worship because some youth pastor told him so, while I of course knew it was about drugs. I had the song memorized at the time. Yes, I was quite the headbanger. I got better though, once I got to Detroit and was exposed to other music by my pals. (I'm still gonna buy the new Iron Maiden cd, though.) But please, talk more about school assemblies and don't let me derail this.

Well, I participated because I had to: I was in the band. I was even drum major of the band... In my defence, we were pretty cynical about the whole thing. But who in high school wasn't? :-)

I've never even heard of a spirit assembly. But I loved those big assembly's and meetings and wotnot, because it meant we weren't in class (ugh!) learning.

I went to an assembly fall quarter my first year of high school. "never again," I thought. sometimes they took attendance. I didn't care. my parents didn't care. as long as I got a 4.0 gpa, they would write me notes whenever I thought I didn't need to go to class. when they didn't take attendance (when you don't go as part of your third-period class or whatever), I would leave the previous class early in order to leave the building before they sent the guards out to block the doors to the outside. pep assemblies were too fucking inane to sit through. and I had no interest in seeing the graphic scare-tactic films about drunk-driving accidents, either. one time I skipped with another overachiever friend, and we got caught in the parking lot by our guidance counselor (who was always giving me trinkets from the u.s. armd forces). he said, "I want you two to go right back in the building and turn yourselves in. do you promise to do that?" "yes," we said. then we drove to albertson's and got coffee, muffins and the paper. last year I read an old birthday card from high school. my friend laurie was making fun of me. "yeah, so I find you skipping school, and what are you doing? smoking? making out? no -- you're STUDYING!" another time I skipped and they sent LOTS of guards (teachers) out into the parking lot to look for bad kids. I knew they'd lock up the gates to the parking lot so I had parked by the swim center and was dodging and ducking behind cars when I found myself behind the same car as some black-t-shirted stoner kid. it was so fucking funny. I'd probably never even looked this kid in the face before, I didn't recognize him at all. he would never be in any class of mine and we would never know each other's names. but here we were hiding behind the same car in the parking lot, and I wanted to laugh, but he smiled at me and said "shhh!"

KOLTS HAVE PEP!! you miserable, sperm-burping ass-rashes!! KOLTS HAVE PEP!!! shut the fuck up you little homo monkey!

it's so important to have pride in your school, in your team.

just like you would to your girl.

My school didn't have that stuff. Every year, at opening and at closing of the school year, our headmaster (Rod Beach) would read us a Dr. Seuss book. The kindergartners right on up to the Seniors in the open air amphitheatre. My favorite book to be read in a school context was the sneech one. But there were others that weren't half bad. We didn't have cheerleaders or anything. When we competed on "It's Academic" (lame local teen quiz show) some of the guys from the lacrosse team inevitably did a little cheer spelling out the letters of the high school. Pretty easy, K-E-Y. We had lacrosse and soccer for the boys, lacrosse, field hockey and softball for the girls. I got busted leaving campus once, too, with another unteruberachiever. We were made an example of: they made us eat lunch with a teacher for a week. So I bought a frisbee and parked off campus. When I wanted to split I would have my buddy throw the frisbee long and hard across the street, and we would both chase after it. Then walk around the corner to my car. Vrooom.