Day 8 - Blog's Away

This past weekend I finished watching the 18 episode series Freaks and Geeks, meaning I might officially be the last person on the planet to have watched it. Given that this was a Judd Apatow project I'm not sure what took me so long to finally get around to seeing it, but nonetheless it did and now I've watched it. I will have to say that I loved it, and I'm disappointed that there's only 18 episodes. The characters are very well developed, especially given the fact that only one season's worth of development was allowed to take place, and the story is told in the same stylings Apatow has been known for over the past few years.

As I watched it I couldn't help but feel that of all the shows I've seen that depict life in high school, this may be the most accurate portrayal. It is a story about the kids who AREN'T the jocks, in the same vein as The Wonder Years, this story follows a group of in-betweens who don't entirely fit into any particular clique. This isn't too unlike my high school experience, and I would guess that to be the same of many of the people reading this blog (assuming there are in fact people who read it).

I usually try not to talk about movies or music or anything of the things I actually like in this blog as to avoid developing a "theme" to this, but I thought it was worthwhile to bring up it time. The reason being is that I can completely relate to a lot of the characters in this storyline. The main character, Lindsay, is sort of between groups. She leaves her preppy Mathlete friends to broaden her horizons and hang out with the "freaks". I can remember going through a similar process in my high school, I went from hanging out with my preppy friends to hanging out with friends that drank. I remember the tensions between myself and my original group of friends who frowned upon drinking and partying for whatever reason.

In the show Lindsay is castigated by the school and her family for choosing to hang out with the "Freaks" rather than the Mathletes, but she does it anyway. Interestingly by doing so she reveals that although the Freaks in the school aren't in the cool "clique" they are their own clique and have all the drama and bullshit that comes along with it. Again, very realistic, thinking back to 9th and 10th grade I played baseball on our B-squad team and by default hung out with the baseball players and hoped to get invited to the baseball parties the juniors and seniors threw. By about mid-way through my sophomore year of high school though I began to realize that I didn't care what these jock/prep baseball players thought or did, and I no longer cared if I was invited to one of these oh-so "exclusive" parties.

I elected to go and hang out with my school's own hybrid version of the Freaks/Geeks, the Magic the Gathering/MathDork/Art Students. We would hang out before and after school every day in the cafeteria and shoot the shit about whatever. There was none of the pretentious bullshit that I would deal with on a daily basis when hanging out with the baseball crowd. I didn't have to pretend I liked the shitty music they liked, or watched the shitty shows, or talk about what went down in this week's church service, or talk about which is the best flavor of Skittles to put into my Zima.

What turned out to be more fun than any of that bullshit was being able to hang out with people who didn't give a shit one way or another what the other person liked or disliked. I was big into techno/industrial music back then so KMFDM, Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Daft Punk and Death in Vegas were mainstays in my Walkman. Of course this was pre-iPod so CD players and CD books were a must.

One of the most consistent points they try to convey in Freaks and Geeks is that you are not defined by what you are in high school. Meaning, if you leave and go to college the Freak/Geek/Jock/Prep label only follows you there if you choose to let it. Furthermore to that point, they stress another thing that isn't talked about in reality as much as it should. Just because you suck in high school, doesn't mean you'll suck in life afterwards. The chart below illustrates the point they're trying to make.

Legend

Jocks (in blue):

• A: Ages 0-10. Everyone gets along great, jocks/nerd/geeks/boys/girls everyone gets along with everyone else (in general)
• B: Ages 11-18. During these ages the jock begins to separate himself from the geeks. Jocks usually hit puberty just a bit earlier than the geeks and tend to be a bit taller or more muscular than the geeks. Its during this particular time that the jocks conduct the majority of their tormenting of the geeks. Wedgies, swirlies, fighting, teasing are all fairly common at this stage in their development. At this stage in his life the jock is considered to be the "King". He runs the school and dates the prom queen, unfortunately for him though, this will be the peak of his life; it doesn't get any better than this for him.
  
• C: Ages 18-21. During these years the college experience begins. Well, at least it would have if he would have studied and had a high enough GPA to get into any of the colleges he applied to. He realizes at this point that though he was great at football in his rural high school town, he basically sucks when compared to players who are ACTUALLY good. He applies to the nearby state college and gets accepted, though not on a sports scholarship. He goes out for football, and by the fall semester of his sophomore year he is forced to quit due to academic probation. Given the fact that he really has no skills to begin with he quits school altogether and goes back home to live with the parents and drink at the local townie bar in his small home town.
  
• D: Ages 21-50. The jock has succumbed to the fact that he will never amount to much of anything and he decides to take up employment at the local Boston Market or 99 Cents Only store. He maintains this job for the majority of his life. He stops off at the same local watering hole he's been frequenting since he were old enough to do so legally. He still attends the high school football games on Friday nights, sitting next to the girl he ended up marrying. That girl wasn't his high school sweetheart, she is some girl he didn't talk to in high school nor would he have given the chance. Quite the contrary, she's just some girl he randomly hooked up with one night at the local bar, accidentally knocked up and was forced into marrying . A big event for him now is seeing a tractor pull or attending the American Legion Fish Fry.
  
• E: Ages 50+. The jock is now fully entrenched as a member of his local hometown community, he has come to terms with his failed athletic career and insists on talking to younger facsimiles of himself recanting the stories of the "good old days". Given that he has no retirement plan and jobs that provided no benefits his entire life, he's basically forced into working for the remainder of their lives. At this point he probably realizes the folly of his ways but can't do anything about it by now. He lives with his wife, who he's grown to loathe by this point, and is angered by his sons inability to run a slant or catch a wide open pass. What's more is that his sons actually prefer to study and play computer games than actually play any sports. The jocks' greatest fear is realized, his sons/daughters are geeks...and gay. That's right jocks grow up to father gay dorks, its a fact. Look it up.

Geeks (in red):

• A: Ages 0-10. Everyone gets along great, jocks/nerd/geeks/boys/girls everyone gets along with everyone else (in general).
• B: Ages 11-18. These are what are known as the worst years of the Geeks life. These are the picked on, awkward, puberty, pimple-ridden, Dungeons & Dragons playing, no females allowed, patchy facial hair, trench coat wearing days of his life. This is the time when the geek thinks his life will be terrible forever. This is the bottom of the barrel popularity-wise for the Geek.
  
• C: Ages 18-21. Just before graduating high school the geek is accepted to the Ivy league school he applied to. All the tormenting in the world by the jocks is ignored because he knows that this is the beginning of the rest of his life. In the spring of his senior year he says good riddance to his high school and the majority of the people in it and then he goes on to his dream colleges on healthy scholarships because of his sparkling high school GPA and SAT scores.
  
• D: Ages 21-50. These are the glory years for the geek. Now successfully graduated as Valedictorians of their respective colleges he goes on to start his own businesses. He sells the businesses off to venture capitalists for millions of dollars and retires by age 40. He now has his choice of women, these same women who used to ridicule the geek are now flocking to them because of his success and riches....Opportunist bitches.
  
• E: Ages 50+. The geek returns to his hometown to attend his high school reunion. On his way to the reunion he notices that the lead jock from high school who gave him so much hell those many years ago is now manning the drive-thru window at McDonalds. The geek pulls his Porsche into McDonalds drive-thru and watches the jock squirm as he asks the geek if he wants to Supersize that.

Obviously this is incredibly hyperbolic, but its meant to be. So I guess the moral of this "story" is what comes around goes around, cliche as hell, yes, but it effective here. And don't try and feel bad for the jock in this mock storyline because he banged your mom when you were in high school, so he gets whatever is coming to him.