2009.40 : Top 3rd of America's Top 1200 Schools
We've been watching Millenium on DVD. I think this show has some of the best casting ever on TV. So many weirdos of so many kinds and the actors make them totally believable. Glad things didn't go the way they appeared to be going in this fiction. Maybe next Millenium? The hero, Frank Black, was a profiler. When he talks to the FBI about serial killers and wackos, the profile is usually a loner, ostracized in high school, often from the midwest. That describes most of the creative people I know.
Makes me remember the people I went to high school with in the mid 60's. Our high school was number 390 on a list of the top 1200 schools in America at some point. Although we probably had a majority of boring accountants, doctors, white collars and soldiers, some of whom never returned from 'Nam, there were many unusual people before, after and during my own stint there.
Take my closest friend, Owen, who discovered and signed an artist who formerly was "the artist formerly known as Prince". Owen's done a lot on the music business and I see him from time to time out in California. David Z and Owen and I shared the very first Beatles album and we got high together and listened to "Are You Experienced", an album that I believe still has no equal today. What better summing up of a generation than this: "I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to."
There were a lot of others like Al Franken, political satirist turned politician (attended through 10th grade) and Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist who wrote for the school paper, The Echo. Recently, he wrote The World is Flat, and a book I am reading on and off in Audible form, Hot, Flat and Crowded. Joel and Ethan Coen went there, too and Fargo reflects heavily on their childhood memories of people and language. I just noticed the sadistic math teacher we all despised was elected mayor of the town. Funny to think that in those days, a teacher could drag you around by your ear, spank you with a wooden paddle. All in the school rated 390 on a list of 1200.
Owen recently sent me a clipping from a Minneapolis newpaper about Charlie, a bass player I used played with in a few bar bands. Charlie, when he grew up, worked in real estate. Recently he was arrested at age 63 or so for stealing drugs out of homeowners medicine cabinets.
All in all, a fine bunch!
