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The Rant Shack
(Wherein We Rant)
Mike Says:
(10/01/04)
TIM IS OLD!!!!.
It's my favorite time of the year. That time when, for 17 days, Tim is legally a year older than me. That's right, today is the date-o-birth of Nice Guy artist Tim Watts. Just how old is he? Well, for 17 days, I'm going to tell you he's REALLY old! After that, I'll explain how age is a state of mind... But if any of you wish to drop Mr. Watts a birthday greeting, you can do so at tim@theniceguycomic.com. Eat your prunes, you decomposing bastard! AHHH ha ha!
BACK TO SCHOOL
I thought I'd take this opportunity, on his birthday, to embarrass Tim even further, and take a little stroll down memory lane. As it's that time of year when kids are all loading up their backpacks and putting fresh Duracells in that Gameboy and starting another school year, I thought I'd wax a little scholastic and take a look back at the school days of me and Tim.
Voted least likely to have sex with anyone...EVER.
As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, Tim and I have actually known each other since the 5th grade. I leave it entirely to your imaginations to ponder how long ago THAT was, because I'M not tellin'. We met in this little private school that we attended in the lovely Sacramento suburb of Carmichael. We didn't really hang out much in the 5th grade, but ended up friends on the 6th, having a shared interest in Encyclopedia Brown books, comics, Shogun Warriors, and girls we could never have.
Actually, it was in the 6th grade that we had our first joint publication experience. Tim and I started our own campus newspaper, one called (brace yourself for the devastating originality) "The Campus Chronicle". As I recall, our first edition wasn't too bad. We had some actual school news mixed in with the goofiness, goofiness that included a comedy serial called "Dumb Daring Donald and His Dumb Daring Deeds" (a Tim Watts original). No, it wasn't a comic strip. Tim actually used to write back then. Now he just draws and practices home bartending. Our next and final edition, however, got us in some hot water. No school news, just us goofing off. Our teacher, Mr. Sanford, didn't feel it was worth school resources, but since he didn't EXPLICITELY say no, we took the two-sided one-sheet to the school secretary for copying anyway. Got nailed for it. End of our publishing empire for a number of years. First sign of a dictatorship, by the way? Silence the press!
Me and Tim hanging out at Assembly.
Not that this kept us out of trouble. We invented strange ways to get into it. For some reason we thought it would be really cool to sneak a look at the school files. We worked up this whole clandestine thing where one of us would do the distracting and the other would get into the file cabinet and get a peek. One the occasion where Tim was doing the peeking, I was the one distracting a pretty student aid (I think this older woman was actually in high school!) with some lame story about losing my personalized pencil. In retrospect, the smile on her face suggested she thought I was crushing on her. Hah! Little did she know that Tim was in the next room, rifling through building permits and other documents that made no sense to either of us and were boring as hell. That'll show YOU to get over yourself, missy!
As I said, it was a small private school, one that had grades kindergarten through 12th. Elementary school was in one set of buildings (K-6), junior high was in another building (7-8), and the high school was on the other side of the grounds. We did our time in all those rooms. Growing up, dreaming big, and girl crazy pretty much from the get-go. I think we both hit puberty at the same moment when Kim Woods walked into our 6th grade class for the first time (what the hell are those?!). We actually competed for the same girl that year as well. Neither of us did especially well, but at least I DID get to take her to the Christmas banquet in 7th grade (no dancing at our school..."banquets" were the only way to get your social groove on). There was another girl we were after (Rishon), but somehow decided that working together and both asking her out at the same time would work well for both of us. Still not quite sure what we were thinking. But it was a moot point anyway. Lest we forget...you're talking to the original Nice Guys here. Guys like the long-haired and roguish Lyle Cardella always got the girls. All we ever got was to stare at Wilma Deering's disco pants on "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" and dream about dating.
Elementary school, with all its mysteries and frustrations, was quite a ride. Ah, I do recall the joys of recess. Junior high ended that concept, but while we had it, it was grand. The time when you ran (usually literally) out of class, hit the playground, rapped with your buddies about the important things in life (which one was the coolest Micronaut toy, who'd win in a fight between Batman and Moon Knight, which was the best looking of the Seven Lady Truckers on "B.J. and the Bear"), and tried to talk to girls (which was hard, because aside of just being such a great mystery, they were always talking about such ridiculous girly crap). I think I first began to understand the unavoidable passage of time during those recesses, noting how the fun just seemed to be getting started when the teacher would blow the whistle and it was over, just like that. Then back to class, with its fold-top desks and note-passing even occasional learning. You know, depending on the luck of birth and ancestry, alphabetical seating could either by your best friend or worst nightmare. You could end up right next to the prettiest girl in class all year. Or sit next to that nose-picking kid who always had a slight aroma of urine to him.
Come on, doesn't that face just say to you "tell me all your problems but don't ever actually date me"? By the way, in case of sudden flooding, that vest also functions as a floatation device...
School? Fine. Summer? Come on! This was something that came around every year, but I still couldn't quite bring myself to believe it each time the school year ended. There would be that last day of class, taken up mainly by killing time and word games and hangman with your teacher, the deviation from the normal routine that was but a harbinger of the freedom to come. That final bell would ring, and final goodbyes said, and then you were in the back seat of your mom's car, looking back at the campus fading way in the distance, realizing in slightly bittersweet way that you weren't going to see it for THREE MONTHS. You remember how LONG three months seemed back then? I'd get home nearly insane with the idea. No school the next day. Or the day after. Or the day after that. Getting out of bed when I felt like it. Watching all the morning and afternoon TV I never got to see during the year (which, looking back, was actually pretty lame in its variety and content, since this was the age before cable). I only wish they could bottle the euphoria that I can only vainly try to properly recall now. Summer vacation was magic. That time when you could stop being a student and just be a kid. Tim and I spent a lot of time staying over at each other's houses, playing Atari, board games, and reading comics. And there was the occasional trip the movies. This was also before home video became widespread (Tim's family got a VCR well before mine, I recall, this big dinosaur top-loading monolith with a digital clock on it so bright you had to lay something over it if you were camping out in the living room or you'd never get to sleep), so movies meant a lot more. And there is nothing like going to the movies at that age. In high school it becomes social, a group event. Later in life it comes about dating or needing to see that film that everyone's talking about so you're not left out at the old water cooler. But in the pre-teen world, before your cynicism has crept in and before you learn what happens behind the camera and the magic loses its luster, that's when you're truly transported. There was no such thing as a bad movie, only new worlds and ideas and adventures to discover. There were movies on TV in the summers, too. We had the Summer Movie Festival on Channel 40 (one of our two UHF channels), where we could see out-of-date Hollywood blockbusters badly censored (I'll always remember Burt Reynolds' voice, not matching up with his lips, exclaiming "Gosh darn son of a buck!" in "The End")--Charles Bronson man films, Chuck Norris karate films, Clint Eastwood actioners and John Carpenter classics (censored or not, there was nothing better than seeing "Escape from New York"). And I spent much of my solo time sitting at my kitchen table with a 100 pack of binder paper tied together with yarn through the holes, creating my own comics (even though I could draw nothing more than stick figures). I couldn't draw like Tim, but the urge to create comics was a strong one in me.
Junior high was that awkward rite of passage we all recall--when you're no longer quite boys, but not quite men. We moved into a whole new world...and a whole new building. We had LOCKERS, for God's sake. Not desks, but lockers, great symbols of upward movement on the scholastic evolutionary chain. Lockers didn't just hold your books and papers. They made a statement. You could decorate them with all kinds of neat stuff, so whoever passed by could get a quick glance at how cool you really were (is the Journey logo actually cool?). I just recalled that I, enterprising as I was, had my own locker cleaning business. I'd clean and organize your locker for a modest fee. My first foray into publishing behind me, I'd now had my first taste of running a business, and found it good. This would later be replaced by my sales of Pentel automatic pencils that I pilfered from the office supply room at my mom's work. This, by the way, is the great formula of Hollywood--steal it and make it yours! Memories of junior high included Tim and I hanging out with our boys, Wayne, Manuel and Karl, playing D&D and Gamma World, playing some pencil and graph paper space combat game we'd made up between and often during classes, trying to crack the Rubic's cube, the aforementioned Christmas banquet experiences (where I seem to recall Manuel and Karl actually playing the graph paper combat game at their table...very sad), and me getting ratted out for stealing Monika Peterson's phone number from the school secretary's rolodex (actually, come to think of it, it was Tim who ratted me out...).
Hey, look! I had a date! I took Jenny Juarros to the 7th grade Christmas banquet! Trying to think...was that my LAST date...?
This was also when Tim really started drawing. Being fans of comics as we were, we both liked supers, and Tim could do great super-hero stuff. In what I think was Tim's first freelance work, I used to pay him to draw pictures for me of heroes that I thought up. And this also marked our first comic creation together. We created a comic called "S.A.N.D." (the Supreme Agency for National Defense...just a SLIGHT Nick Fury influence). We had all kinds of ideas for it, but I think all we ever got done was about two pages of the first issue, and the cover of the second issue, which I can still see if I close my eyes tight enough. I thought it was the coolest thing Tim had ever drawn, a neat perspective shot of our hero flying with a jetpack and gun battling someone in an armored suit whose back was to us. Sadly (probably not), S.A.N.D. was not meant to be. But it was during this time that I picked up my serious interest in writing, after our English teacher, Mrs. Grenberg, encouraged me and entered an essay of mine in a writing contest that actually won an award.
Hey, Tim had a date, too. Dude, you took Marlena Tilstra? The pastor's daughter? Were you NUTS? That's a guaranteed handshake date, bro! By the way, did that pay well, being the fifth Beatle?
High school came. You want to talk about a whole new world? We were on THAT side of the school grounds now, the buildings we'd only ever seen as we rode by them in the our parents' cars coming or going from school. Now we were MEN. High school MEN.
And the nightmare was just beginning.
Is there anything lower in life than being a high school freshman? I doubt it. Humiliation and hormones. Only that 2% of high school freshmen males actually looks good. The rest are half-grown acne-faced squeaky-voiced freaks that every once in a while manage to feel cool for about five minutes until an upper classman walks by and shoves them into the girls bathroom. Actually, I think because of the small size of our school, we had it easier than most. Everybody kind of knew everybody else, and we really didn't have any serious "bad kids" to speak of. Mostly, we just lived in our little freshmen world of hanging with our boys (since the girls were all dating junior and seniors), telling dirty jokes, discovering music, getting obsessed with weird ideas (let's all get vans when we turn 16 and spend the summer after driving across the country! I should point out that I'm the only one that ended up with a van. SOMEBODY had to live the dream), and trying to see who could grow a peach fuzz mustache first. Babe MAGNETS, every one.
Ladies and gentlemen, gymnastic phenom Tim Watts.
Ah, high school...the great tidal pool from whence nice guys are spawned. I think nowhere else in nature is the nice guy concept more evident. At least in adult life, you have opportunity be make choices and better yourself. In high school, there are rigid social laws and defined classes. You are marked from the get-go. Jock, rebel, loser, or "good friend". I think I wavered between a couple of those in my four years (not going to say which...hey, stop guessing!). There were many crushes, lots of the great unrequited love drama that most people recall from those years. There were moments. There's that great period of time when you actually start talking to girls on the phone, when you're almost drunk on the experience. Tim and I actually got some make out action off the same girl (at different times, you perverts)--a shout out to Krista, wherever you are. There were other banquet opportunities for us both. But mostly, girls were the great mystery, the Holy Grail beyond reach. But you know, you count yourself lucky in the high school experience if you at least spent a good amount of time hanging OUT with girls. At least it's good training for better opportunities in college, whereas a lot of guys walk out of graduation not even knowing how to talk to one.
I think we only joined the choir for the cool red blazers.
While high school was a mixed bag, it was, overall, a really great experience for us both, I think. We got to spend our underclassman years reading science fiction books and obsessing over Trek and Star Wars with our pals. Things would move on. Tim got involved in athletics and became both gymnast and track star. We both took part in things like the choir--which got us a swell trip to the World's Fair in Vancouver--and the drama club (Tim was the lead in "Santa Sees a Shrink" and our other production that I can't for the life of me remember the name of. We have great memories of school trips (Washington DC for Reagan's second inauguration, the Yosemite trip ("steamroller!!!"), senior trip to L.A. and Catalina. We had a great bunch of people that schooled with us that we had lots of great times with. And at our graduation night talent show, Tim and I even did a Monty Python sketch on stage together ("Would you like to have an argument?") among other things. For the record, when the class awards were given out that night, I ended up with "Wildest Imagination", whereas Tim walked away with "Class Flirt".
Ah, the Drama Club. Nice Members Only jacket, O'Connell. What were you, like, the last member? Note, please, that I only LOOK that short because I'm standing next to Karl Kelley...
It's funny, the things that stick out in your mind when you look back at it all. There's the classes, the events, the graduation, sure. But mostly, I remember things like us having all the guys over to my place (I was the only one with cable when it first came out) to watch "Heavy Metal" and trying to be sly because there were parents in the next room. Sneaking in to see "Hot Dog: The Movie" and "Spring Break" with Karl freaking out, sure we were all going to get caught and go to jail. Tim and I watching and worshipping "Bosom Buddies" and trying to pattern our lives after those of Kip and Henry (without the dresses...but we ARE willing to learn). Us cutting up during choir practice, sitting back in the bass section, where I would rewrite the songs we were singing with my own lyrics to stave off the boredom (please don't ever ask me to give you the words to "Ethiopia". I was a very, very bad man). Us hitting the video arcades and playing Gauntlet for hours on end (Tim was the Wizard. I was the Warrior. And Warrior needs food! Badly!). Us annoying Tim's poor mother by watching "First Blood" on their VCR every time I came over. Tim's mom making us biscuit casserole on those weekend sleepovers made up of all-night movie sessions and talks about Simon Hawke's "Time Wars" novels which turned into endless debates over the nature of time travel.
Ah, those crazy seniors. May I point out that I wanted class jackets, not the retro class sweaters that got voted in?
Time travel, I believe, if there were true justice in this world, would be possible, and available. Because, I think, we all deserve a chance to go back and experience our school years all over again. I used to think if I could do that, I'd do everything differently. And maybe I would (God knows I'd study more). But I wouldn't need to change my destiny to enjoy the ride. At this point in my life, I think it'd just be a kick to go back and do it all over again. Feel the excitement of that first day of a new school year, with all the new faces in the desks around you that may or may not end up a serious part of your life. Get in squirt gun fights on the busses during school trips. Discover Shakespeare for the first time. Sneak on campus over the weekend and vandalize the senior wall. Flip through the yearbook that first day everyone got them and try to see how many hot girls you can get to sign them (even if it was just a "Have a great summer"). And most of all, just be YOUNG...believe that anything is possible, devour each new experience and moment that comes along, see life with all the colors turned up to 10 and never think that its ever going to end. I think we could all use that kind of vacation. Ironic, I think, that I'd one day consider going back to school AS a vacation. But it's one I'd book in a minute if there was a temporal travel agent out there. If for nothing else, just to go back and see if the thing Tim and I were trying on Rishon made any sense when we were planning it. It probably did, at least to us. Everything does when you're young.
And FYI? Acroyear was the coolest Micronaut. Was to! Shut up!.
HAVE A "NICE" SUMMER
Just in case you needed evidence that the Nice Guy syndrome comes on early in life, let's take a look at a few messages written in my 7th grade yearbook, shall we?
Mike:
It's been really neat being with you this year. You're really nice, in the true meaning of the word.
Jenny Rau
Mike:
You are a very nice person and whenever you were around you made me feel really good. Hope you come back next year and have a good summer.
Lori
Dear Mike:
I have enjoyed this year with you. You are really neat & nice. Have a great summer and see you next year.
Love, Rishon
Dear Mike:
You are a great person with a great personality!
Friends always (I hope), Vivian Lausuvic
Mike:
You are a very nice person. Have a great summer.
Your friend always, Jenny J.
Mike:
It's been nice seeing you again. You're a sweet guy. Stay as nice as you are.
Mary
Dear Mike:
Thank you so much for being so nice to me this year! You're so much fun! Well, have a great summer!
Love, Kim Bitzer
Come on, sing it with me...
"To all the girls I've BEEN A REALLY GOOD FRIEND TO before..."
DISTURBING INTERNET IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Yeah, it's official. Tim's going to kick my ass...
Ring the bell, school's in, sucka!
Michael
The
Nice Guy
“Pilot”
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