This is a video from May 1986 that my buddies and I made (and starred in) for a final project for Mrs. Beckman's New Media class at Naperville North High School. This vid was shown at the end-of-the-year assembly, and even won us delinquents a prize, which we claimed on stage during Honor's Day, for chrissakes. We were inspired to make this because we all hated North, and were generally bored with life. If it weren't for Mrs. Beckman, we'd have nothing but eggy memories of that place. We shot this on 3/4" video tape, edited on machines with those rotary dials. Only the fucktards did New Media back then, and that was us, along with three others: one Morbidly Obese Soul who shot the football games, a one Bruce Dyker (the kid who got his ass kicked in this vid - by me - but showed us all a good many of the ropes), and one effeminate bald older man who may or may not have been a teacher but had some special room in the upper library with access to all the techMology. He was cool.
Of course, the vids by kids are much slicker these days. But that's because life is now so much more mediated at such a younger age, technology so much more advanced and handy (literally). Just check out the other samplings on youtube from this same highschool, which btw resembles nothing I recollect and seems now to be one huge fucking foodcourt. I'm about to launch into an "Ubi sunt..." about burnouts and the smoking lounge. I really want to say: believe it or not, for back then, this vid was pretty good.
I mean, you lucky 16 year-old bastards: you have online porn, while we had to dig up Penthouses from 1978 from the forest preserve and then deploy Gadamerian hermeneutics to make any erotic sense out of hairy pussy pics that the elements had rendered utterly unintelligible. We back then understood the meaning behind Freud's famous question, "What is Woman?" You just have no idea what it's like not to know what a pussy "is," much less looks like, until you encounter one in real life. On a side note, the girl in the vid was the first girl I ever kissed -- in seventh grade -- in Jim Morgan's basement during a spin-the-bottle party. She was hot, with that feathered hair. Nice ass too. But I digress, since thinking about highschool also presents the risk of infinite regress. Anyway, to close this sub-routine, I've more than caught up with you jerkers-offers, and I could still kick your ass anyway, so without further adoooooo, I present the long awaited-for digitally remastered (i.e., compressed and now more shitty) . . .
. . . 20th Anniversary Edition!!! (more or less):
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4 comments:
As one of the co-writers and co-directors of this piece, I am heartwarmed to see it still holds up(in spite of the production values) as a surreal, subversive, post-modernly psychedelic comment on the 80's high school experience at that paticular school.When we showed it to the class, immediate repeat showings were demanded. undeniable hit- the pre-summer break sleeper hit of the semester.
For the rest of the year, they showed it at assemblies, student functions and even at the prom. WE WON A FUCKING AWARD!
The powers that were embraced it. I have no idea why.
This shit just wouldn't jive today.
The surreal: Jimi Hendrix poster, "Zen Digney", taped cans, leaning and crouching "mystery men", Javfra shirts, flying erasers, sliding trash cans.
The subversive:whiskey bottles,KNIVES!,demon possesed power-hungry teachers, the American flag.
The postmodernly pychedelic:
The five basic food groups, the reaper with a chainsaw sitting on the dumper. GLUTEN!!!
RIGHT OVER THEIR HEADS!
Embraced it. I am pretty confident in saying that this video was an unnofficial spark. From the day it was first shown to the modern day, every student new-media project at that school became more ambitious, the school a few years later had video presence on the local cable channel, and the future rolled upon itself with all the said advances in the technology. Our project faded from their memory, a fart in a Fiat to a fart in the winter wind.
Today: they would have pulled us aside as they called out the counselors.
Then: WE WERE GODS.
"Andy Cole."
How cute, baby.
It's a good thing you got married before you posted this, or else all the chicks would be after your fey little flag waving booty.
is that kid wearing a Grimace t-shirt? and is Grimace wearing some kind of bee costume?
i second the "you lucky kids" notion, ESPECIALLY re: online porn, but the other shoe drops when you realize that these kids will never "discover" holy tokens of their repressed urges and therefore participate in what little there remained of passage-rites in this country. gone are the days of discovering someone's discarded "mags" out in the woods near the golf course -- a nigh-mystical moment for many my age. rarely does the void reach out to you and offer you a glimpse of the Invisible World, let alone provide you with SECRET NAKED TREASURE. it was like finding a goddamn obelisk, except instead of a silent Sign of Presence you got water-damaged copies of Club International.
THIS MOVIE IS BLOWING MY MIND AWAY!
I'll always love the perverse subtlety of the diagonal iron cross hang and the head stand.
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