This is the next part of the story of me. See 2 entries back for the last part.
Near the end of elementary school I received my first CD player as a Christmas present. I got The Doors "The Soft Parade" album with it. My parents were sort of artistic hippies, mother was into things like David Bowie, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan and father loved Neil Young and Alice Cooper. Those artists along with the classical piano pieces I learned were my first musical influences. What was the first album you purchased? After receiving the CD player I bought my first album, Pink Floyd's "The Wall".
Soon after that I started seventh grade a a violent and incompetent institution known as Franklin Junior High School. The site the school was build on is infected by an ancient curse. Eyes blink at you from dark corners and invisible tentacles rise from the ground, looking up womens skirts and pulling bad thoughts to the surface of the minds of anyone in reach. It will always be a place of madness and pain, but you can get a surprisingly good cappuccino nearby.
There were no gifted or advanced courses at Franklin, academically it was routine, dull, and easy. The place felt black and white like you had just stepped onto the set of an old but violent prison film. At Franklin I saw a girl get shot in the eyes with mace and scream while tryiing to wash the stuff off for over 30 minutes in a water fountain. I saw a boy punch his hand through a window and get rushed off to the emergency room for stitches. Red, red blood on the grey concrete floor. I saw a friend's head beat against a brick wall by a random assailant, then watched him try to get up several times. He would twitch from the pain each time like he had epilepsy and fall over. I saw how playground fights end on the ground and the kid on top wins. I saw a bully threaten a victim with a switchblade knife. I saw how all these things were all more intense in real life than on television.
I was a small, thin kid through most of school but was never swept up by the violent hands of Franklin. My long hair and rick t-shirts attracted the druggie kids and I fell in with their crowd, a tough and raggedy group who protected one another. I learned it is better to be a good talker than a good fighter.
I had a lot of casual friends but few close ones outside of school. Life was playing the piano, drawing, books, homework, and riding around town in our family's station wagon. My younger brother was in basketball, my younger sisters were in ballet and I played the piano. Those things kept us running about like mad from one rehearsal or performance to another.
After seventh grade we moved and things changed again. |
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