I’ve had it with Christmas

By Drew Millard

That’s it. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with this Christmas cheer. If I have to hear another version of “Silver Bells,” I might have to strangle myself with a bough of mistletoe. If I hear one more person wish me a Merry Christmas, I’m going to beat them with a roll of wrapping paper.
I’m sorry if that sounds overtly aggressive, but that’s only because it is. The crass commercialism that is Christmas has gotten to me lately for some reason, and I’m not sure why. You may remember that in a recent column, I wrote how I loved Christmas music, and the holiday season in general. I’m afraid to say that I might have reneged on that opinion. I guess that having to deal with the whole spirit of Christmas for two months instead of one has just kind of gotten to me. It’s become grating. Too much of a good thing, I guess.

The Christmas Spirit, in all its grandeur and glory, is dead, and it has been replaced by the Ghost of Christmas Commercialism. I guess I can best describe it in the context of the Family Christmas Movie. Every year, some formerly gigantic Hollywood star (read: Steve Martin) who used to have some sort of artistic integrity (Okay, maybe the word “integrity” isn’t right — just not the kind of star who you would think would be in a Christmas movie) stars in some sort of kid-friendly holiday flick that will inevitably make a hundred million dollars and will also inevitably stink. The Hollywood star has essentially sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the right to be the one who takes money from millions of parents this year. This year, the big stars are Danny DeVito and Tim Allen (for what seems like his eighth Christmas movie). Danny DeVito, the same man who directed Death to Smoochy — an R-rated movie about a children’s TV show host who decides to kill his replacement — is now starring in some movie called Deck the Halls, which is about Christmas lights or something. I have no idea, even though I saw the preview.

Let me put it this way. I, personally, am always looking for a reason to celebrate. If I had the power to make every week a different event, I would in a flash. But I would not dwell on whatever awesomeness I had created. I would not build it up for two months. Because Christmas day is always disappointing, isn’t it? Always a let-down. As a kid, your new bike never goes fast enough, the big toy is never as cool as it looks in the commercial, and you never get the pony that you wanted, and if you actually did get the pony, then that too is a disappointment, because you then have to muck out horse stalls until the day you die.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. I’m playing Santa for the kids at the hospital.

It’s all about Christmas

By Drew Millard

Some people say life is about love. Others say it’s about being content with who you are. A few coldhearted souls say life is about money.

But I have good news. All of those people who say those things are full of it. Life is about Christmas.

How do I know this? The day after Halloween, they officially started playing Christmas music on the radio.

Yes, it’s that time of the year, and it keeps coming sooner and sooner. Next year, you’ll be hearing “Silver Bells” just about when I head off to college. And I love it. Nothing shows more holiday spirit than playing Christmas music as soon as possible. Back when I was really really young, I can remember that holiday tunes were never really played until after Thanksgiving. Man, what a jip. I’m super-pumped that somebody decided that Christmas unequivocally superseded Thanksgiving, therefore giving it priority over all other holidays in the universe.

I adore the fact that Christmas music exists, because it (1) shows that people care enough about this holiday to make a soundtrack for it, which is always nice, and (2) forces my friends to listen to artists I like.

I am seventeen. I have delved into my mind many a time in search of material for this column, but I don’t think that I’ve ever told you that I — unlike many teenagers — like to listen to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. Well, I do. These men happen to have made some of the greatest music of all time—more importantly, they also have made some of the greatest Christmas music of all time. Ironically, my generation seems to acknowledge this group’s latter contribution to the musical lexicon, as opposed to the former. In plain English, that means that everybody listens to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole during this time of year, but only their Christmas music. Right now my friends are listening to the artists I like, and they will cease on Dec. 26. Life goes on.

Christmas is clearly the greatest holiday in the universe. There are those who criticize it for fostering a spirit of commercialism and greed, but they’re missing the point. Christmas isn’t about that, just like life isn’t about love. It’s all about the music.

Welcome to Web 2.0

By Drew Millard

Some of you are reading this in the newspaper. Some of you are reading this online. If you are reading the newspaper, congratulations. You are clinging to the old world that I so dearly love, and kind of wish that I was a retrospective part of. That's one of the disadvantages of being young – I want to see what life was like when it was harder, but I literally can't comprehend the universe as any different than it is right now. I can't imagine what a world without shampoo must have been like; conversely, I cannot even begin to fathom what a world with a living Kurt Cobain, a celebrity who died no more than twelve years ago, was like. There is a part of me that wants to experience that old life, but unfortunately, that me is being jettisoned in the name of technology.

Now let us assume that you are reading this on the web, more specifically, on my Tryon Daily Bulletin blog. (for those of you who are not, but do have access to a computer with an internet connection, kindly use your internet browser to
navigate to http://tdbmodernage.blogspot.com, so that my point can be more effectively made). Congratulations. You are officially participating in Web 2.0.

What is Web 2.0, you ask? It is what it is, and "what it is" is simply the idea that the internet should be interactive rather than reactive. Pioneers in this field are websites such as www.myspace.com, the world's most popular social networking site (for those of you wondering what a social networking website is, I'll explain
in a couple paragraphs.); www.wikipedia.com (the world's largest online encyclopedia), and www.blogger.com, the website with which you are reading my words, assuming that you did what I asked and went to my blog.

Now, blogger.com is not just a website where content is posted by a select number of people.

Blogger.com is a web site where one can, through just a couple of easy steps, publish their writing, usually in the form of a journal. However, if someone were so inclined, they could literally publish anything, from pictures to videos to their thoughts on how Kafka would be interpreted had he been known to touch children.

The second website that I should discuss is Wikipedia. This web site is essentially an online encyclopedia, available to be read by anyone in the world, free of charge. The cool part is that in addition to being read by anyone in the world, it can also be edited by anyone in the world.

Now does this work? Yes. More importantly, how does this work-what guarantees that some hack with an opinion won't just fabricate information and pass it off as true?
The answer is this: Wikipedia is founded upon the belief that all people are inherently good, and that if somebody doesn't know what they're talking about in regards to a subject, then they won't post something about it. Of course, Wikipedia is not perfect. Those who are inclined to post on Wikipedia tend to be more interested in the history of Star Trek than, say, the life and times of Millard Fillmore.

And last but certainly not least, I shall discuss the beast. MySpace. If you are not familiar, www.myspace.com is a website that allows its users – usually teenagers – to create their own personal web page, and share information with the world about who they feel like they are.

Many, I think, consider their MySpace as an extension of their own physical bodies, and treat them as such, providing them with routine maintenance, giving them aesthetic changes, etc. In addition to making their own profiles, the site's users can comment upon other users' profiles.

Many times, I have seen the accretion of comments turn into an unspoken contest, a test in fake human interaction.

As of this writing, MySpace has approximately one hundred million people using it – that's not an exaggeration. MySpace is the biggest web site in the world (I think), and those who do use it need to remember that what they post there can be viewed by everyone in the entire universe, assuming the aliens now have access to the Internet.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check my Myspace.

Seventeen and clueless

By Drew Millard

It seems like the older I get, the more I realize that I'm not a kid anymore. Yeah, I know that in and of itself, this expository sentence is deeply simplistic and redundant, but that doesn't make it any less true. Right now, I'm a senior in high school. I have no idea how I got this way. It honestly feels like no time has passed since my freshman year ended.

There are guys on the school soccer team, my fellow seniors, who I look at, and think, "Oh my goodness. This dude is in no way similar to me; he's practically graduated – he shaves four times a week, for cripes' sake!" And you know what? If I don't shave for a week, I end up having a homeless-man beard, just like him. We're all alike.

I have to go to college in a year. I really can't wait. But I'm afraid of the whole "growing up" thing, I think. The way I see it, you turn eighteen, then you graduate, then you go to college, then you graduate again, and then that's where it gets fuzzy. What am I supposed to do after that?

As morbid at it seems, I really wouldn't mind spontaneously combusting the day after my college graduation. At least I'd have a definite goal in life.

But we're in the now. I'm kind of astonished that I'm in the class of the oldest students in Polk County High School – I feel like I shouldn't be this old. When I was a freshman, the seniors were terrifying. They were an unknown danger, lurking in the shadows, just waiting for a freshman to yell at for being in their way. I remember that a lot of the seniors smoked cigarettes – I don't think that I know any of my fellow seniors who smoke – and drove fast cars and ate fast food and had jobs and tried to generally avoid being at home as much as possible. Well, I've got four out of five down. Oh my... it seems that I'm as old as I thought I was after all.

It's just that, in a few years, I'm going to have to get a job, you know? And not just a job waiting tables or doing grunt work – like a "real job" job, one in the outside world, not Polk County. The thought of leaving Polk County terrifies me. What do people do for money when they grow up? I dunno, maybe paint stuff? Dance? Remember to put the right cover sheet on TPS reports? Bowl? All I know is that rug really tied the room together. Will I be saying this kind of things at the age of thirty? I sure hope not.

I guess that I don't really know what to do with my life. But the good news is I don't have to know. I'm 17 and clueless, and I just might be content with staying that way a little longer.

Snakes on a Plane

By Drew Millard

Has society gone completely bonkers? Are we out of ideas already? Pop culture has only existed for essentially maybe four hundred years, and in the last twenty-five years, it seems that we’ve been starved for new ideas, especially in the realms of both music and movies.

In regards to popular music, the most groundbreaking band of the millennium has probably been The Stokes, who sound exactly like The Velvet Underground, a band from 1967 who nobody liked at the time and everybody loves now, even though they’re only marginally listenable to, unless you’ve just shot up some heroin. Point is, no new musical ground has been broken since 1991, when N.W.A. introduced gangsta rap to the world with their opus “Straight Outta Compton.” I doubt the majority of my readers have heard of anything in the preceding paragraph, because The Strokes pander to those who smoke cigarettes behind rock clubs, and N.W.A.’s target audience happens to actually live in Compton.

The movie industry has not fared any better. At all. Every movie ever made is indiscriminately getting the remake treatment, from The Longest Yard to The Omen to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, sadly enough, and it seems like Adam Sandler is starring in a good half of them. Even our best ideas for horror flicks are lifted from foreign culture—the recent horror hit The Ring is just a rip-off of a Japanese film entitled Ringu, which was wholly original. It seems that the Japanese people are making good use of that no-war clause in their constitution.

What the lexicon of movies really needs is a fresh, groundbreaking idea involving something that has never been thought of before.

Which brings me to Snakes on a Plane, a recent film starring the latently transcendent Samuel L. Jackson. Its plot, simply, is as follows: There are snakes on the plane. Samuel L. Jackson must get the snakes off of the plane. That is the plot. Never before have deadly animals and travel mixed so deliciously, and that’s even assuming that the dogs in Homeward Bound were in any way dangerous.

Of course, the movie contains countless nuances, such as in the way the movie’s star disposes of said snakes (whipping, stun-gunning, stabbing, burning, microwaving, to name a few) and the locations in which the snakes bite their victims (such wholesome locations such as private parts, throats, posteriors, eyeballs, etc.) and the varied and colorful vocabulary that its characters employ (I’ll spare you the actual language, but let me promise you: The movie works very hard to earn its “R” rating.).

All in all, the movie adds up to an unbelievably awesome ride best enjoyed in the company of others. The audience in the screening I went to clapped whenever Samuel L. Jackson appeared on screen, killed a snake, said the “f” word, or did almost anything at all. At the climax of the movie, Jackson’s character resolves to shoot out the airplane’s windows by saying his most popular line, containing not one but two instances of a certain twelve-letter modifier. A line that, if one has paid attention to the buzz surrounding this movie, one should be intimately familiar with.

Now, is Snakes on a Plane (or as it is known in some circles, SoaP) a truly great movie? No. It is, however, wildly entertaining. I predict that this movie will reach a cult status similar to that of Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with people dressing in character—as flight attendants, Samuel L. Jackson, a gigantic snake, et al—and reciting lines from the movie to boot. And I will be at every showing I can slither to.

Reasons number 67 and 82 why I don’t have a girlfriend

By Drew Millard

Today’s is a double-faceted column, concerning two seemingly unrelated thoughts, but I think that in conjunction with each other, they adequately explain why I have no girlfriend.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Barnes and Noble to buy a book, and spent 20 minutes internally debating which book to buy, only to decide to save my money for a later date. One week later, I got a speeding ticket, and that 20 dollars I saved by not buying a book could now be spent paying back the government of South Carolina. I’m almost one hundred percent sure that I have vaguely psychic powers, in that I can tell whether I should do something or not, only to find out why I should or should not have done it later.

I stand by this ability, regardless of any situation that may arise, regardless of whether my dull ESP presents me with a favorable situation or not, and regardless of the actual reliability of these semi-psychic powers. They just make me special. I know not whether I shall use them for good or evil, but I’m leaning towards evil, as the bad guy is always cooler than the hero, except when the hero is Sean Connery.

Even when everything seems bleak, my semi-psychic powers tell me what to do, though I know not why they tell their weird little thoughts. Perhaps it’s like that one John Travolta movie where he’s a psychic, but then he dies at the end, and everybody cries. But I hope not.

I was once a great man. I was once proud. I once had hair on the top of my head. If you noticed, the picture that accompanies these columns has recently changed, and what was once a full-on mop-top has been replaced by the shortest of buzzcuts. This was not a stylistic choice on my part.

My hair was cut as part of a necessary retooling that my life required, because I need to get a job, and people with hair that looks like it belongs in a rock band don’t land jobs very easily. Rest assured, I’m never getting a haircut again, and hopefully, soon, I shall replace that picture with another of me and my full mane of head-fur.

My beautifully coiffed hair represented all that was jobless and free. With it, I had Sampson-esque strength: I could lift pillars, I could construct houses with my own bare hands, I could take Chuck Norris in a fight… but now, I am nothing. Nothing, I say! I’m just a sarcastic little kid with broken dreams and a cold head.

So you see? This is why I don’t have a girlfriend.

In review, I’m indecisive, obsessive about my hair, and I think I have secret powers.
If you as a female were also looking for more reasons not to date me, I also own a pair of genuine longhorns that hang above my bed, have problems with commitment, do not drive, and own a shirt with some Spanish written on it that translates into, “Where are my pants?”

So yeah. Take a number.

One nonpolitical fact about every president ever

By Drew Millard

Look: this column is actually a list, in column form. Every little note about these Presidents is true, or at least widely accepted to be a fact.

George Washington: Had wooden teeth.

John Adams: Suffered from bipolar disorder.

Thomas Jefferson: Fathered several children out of wedlock with a slave.

James Madison: Was short, talked like a girl, and had a wife inexorably more famous than he was.

James Monroe: Didn’t actually come up with Monroe Doctrine.

John Quincy Adams: Swam in the Potomac River whilst naked.

And
rew Jackson: His wife’s mother ran a brothel.

Martin Van Buren: Was known as the “Little Magician” because he managed to just make things happen.

William Henry Harrison: Died four weeks into office because he gave a four-hour long speech in a blistering snowstorm and subsequently caught pneumonia.

John Tyler: Was first President to marry whilst in office.

James K. Polk: Served only one term as a result of severe diarrhea.

Zachary Taylor: When in battle, wore a straw hat.

Millard Filmore: Had the coolest first name EVER.

Franklin Pierce: Was an alcoholic who was the first President born in the 1800’s.

James Buchanan: Lived with a man for most of his life.

Abraham Lincoln: Wife was later addicted to opium as a result of his assassination.

Andrew Johnson: Showed up drunk to Lincoln’s second inauguration, and though it was one of the few times he ingested substances, the incident earned him the reputation as a drunk.

Ulysses S. Grant: Had a reputation for great personal integrity, though his entire administration was extorting money behind his back.

Rutherford B. Hayes: Actually lost the popular vote, but won the Presidency anyway.

James Garfield: Was assassinated by a crazy man who was denied a government job in his first few weeks of office.

Chester Arthur: Had the most impressive facial hair of any President ever.

Grover Cleveland: Was the most boring man on earth.

Benjamin Harrison: William Henry Harrison’s grandson. The way his term went, it might have been better if he’d have caught pneumonia.

William McKinley: Always wore a white vest.

Teddy Roosevelt: While serving in the army, always had his uniforms tailored by Brooks Brothers.

William Howard Taft: Has the distinction of being both the fattest President ever, and the only man ever to serve as both President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Woodrow Wilson: A highly religious man, he worked as President of Princeton College to “take the sex out of Princeton” and focus its young male student minds on only knowledge.

Warren G. Harding: Was the worst president ever. The level of his badness cannot be described by words.

Calvin Coolidge: Had an aversion to talking.

Herbert Hoover: Often confused for J. Edgar Hoover.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Had an affair.

Harry S. Truman: Was born without a middle name, only an S.

Dwight Eisenhower: After serving as President, re-entered the Armed Services.

John F. Kennedy: One-upped FDR by having an affair…with Marylyn Monroe.

Lyndon B. Johnson: Often considered the most lewd, vulgar President ever.

Richard Nixon: Biggest regret: tape machine in Oval Office.

Gerald Ford: Liked to fall.

Jimmy Carter: Lusted in his heart.

Ronald Reagan: Was the Gipper.

George H. W. Bush: Vomited on the Prime Minister of Japan, hated broccoli.

Bill Clinton: Played golf.

George W. Bush: Gave C-Students everywhere hope.

The death of art

By Drew Millard

Everywhere I look at Governor’s School, there are art students, with their tortured souls, unique personal quirks, and realizations that in ten years, they’ll be penniless. These people love art so darned much, and it’s going to break their little sensitive hearts when they read what I have to say. Care to know why? Because I hate art.

Art is dead. For those of you keeping score, my vendetta against art begins now.

People like to claim that art is pain, but in my opinion, art is just a lazy person’s way of avoiding a real job. Now I know that I’ve made an exaggerated, bold (and undeniably ignorant) assertion, but undeniably, the concept of art oozes pretension and exclusion.

My thesis statement, for those looking for more concrete arguments than generalizations, goes something like this: People use the term “art” as a blanket statement to cover anything so perplexingly avant-garde that it becomes boring, from urinals to wheels on chairs to a photo of pandas defecating on the Burmese flag. Proponents of this type of art stress the importance of appreciation; “appreciation,” if I may opine, is code for “rationalization.”

Suppose I cut out the corner of my bed with a chainsaw and proclaim it ART. Now suppose you look at my art, and say that it’s no good. I can retort by simply saying that you don’t appreciate its esoteric nature inherent in the underlying metaphor of the motivation behind the art, and are therefore not intelligent enough to truly understand my tortured soul. This happens every day in the world, and it seems that the people who submit corners of beds are winning the argument more and more often.

And don’t get me started on performance art. Essentially, the claim is that anything can be performance art, as long as it is performed and has a message that should be understood by the viewer. When Yoko Ono debuted “Cut Piece” — a piece of performance art that essentially involved her cutting off all of her clothes with scissors — in 1965, that wasn’t art. It was a striptease. There is no way, other than through the consumption of very powerful drugs, that a woman, however homely and/or untrustworthy, disrobing in front of a crowd could be construed as anything other than this. And yet people paid to see this woman get naked in the name of art, and astonishingly, they didn’t throw dollar bills at her. I don’t know what her stated message was. I don’t think it matters, because she ended up with John Lennon and broke up the Beatles.

There once was a time when art had standards. If da Vinci ever turned in a painting of blue, naked, deformed women like Picasso did, they’d send him out on his ear until he could display something that showed some effort. The Last Supper. Now that’s a painting I’d buy. A little expensive, but still.

But now, it seems that society has grown bored with aesthetic perfection. These days, we feel compelled to look to the more abstract notions of human thought. Artists are expected not just to pour paint onto their canvas, but to pour their souls as well. Brush strokes now represent suppressed anger. When art wasn’t insane, brush strokes represented the fact that the artist was using a paintbrush and not, say, a Magic Marker.

I’m not calling for a cessation of all artistic activity, but I am calling for a return to artistic design. I want art to recall to the days when buying a piece of art meant buying something beautiful. I want the obvious brilliance of artists focused towards improving Art, not undercutting itself through unintentional self-parody.

I guess what I’m really saying is that I’m probably the least-cultured person at Governor’s School East, and kind of proud of it.

Three thoughts

By Drew Millard

Here at Governor’s School, everyone is better than me. They’re smarter, more mature, better looking, more cultured, and they would never make the same decisions that I would. Well, maybe that’s a bit of exaggeration, but that’s what most of them would have me believe. While there’s nothing wrong with having that kind of condescending, warped self-confidence, I’ve noticed three aspects of the place that equalize everyone.

1. Everybody here is, at their base, just a teenager. It doesn’t matter that the kids who study science can comprehend quantum mechanics or that the drama students can recite Henry VIII in its entirety or that the art students have pieces on display in a major New York gallery — they still bleed. That is, to discard the metaphors, everybody has the same feelings and problems, regardless of their self-perceived maturity. I know a girl here who is one of the best poets in the state. She is an art lover, the smartest girl at her private school, and, as somebody who knows her put it, “The Queen of Downtown Wilmington.” Yet she still can’t tell the boy she likes how she feels. Learning that the other night made me realize just how young we all really are. Maybe we’re not adults. I’ve been lying to myself for the past four years.

2. I’m not worth squat. When I was in Polk County, there was a fairly reasonable chance that I would be one of the smarter people in the room. (Well, I’d like to think so — it’s probably only true in my twisted psyche.) Not the case at G-School. The thing that worried me the most about leaving home was how different I thought this place would be. Ironically, I’ve been surprised at how many people here are exactly like me. And while it’s a comforting notion to realize that you’re not alone in the world, I’m kind of disconcerted by the fact that I’m not as unique and as incredible and as superlative as I thought I was. And the worst part about this place, I guess, is the realization that there are people who are better at being me than me. I guess that once I get out into the real world, I’ll have some kind of competition. And I thought that everything was going to be handed to me on a platter.

3. Everything is negotiable. Here, the system works like this: if you don’t like something, then you should change it. At Governor’s School East, we have boundaries for visiting the outside world. These boundaries end just before Arby’s — we’ve been denied curly fries much too long. So somebody talked to the Man (or as his wife calls him, Dr. Grymes), and a deal was made: if everyone at GSE completed the student survey, we would get to go to Arby’s. Which happened. Now I know that the only problem with my example is that the Man clearly uses Arby’s as a bargaining chip to keep us in line, and every year, he lets people go there as long as they ask for it. But the point is that you should ask for things in life without actually knowing whether you will receive them or not. So we’re kind of in the real world here, but not really — Governor’s School is almost a Stepfordian façade of college (which is in and of itself a facsimile of life), filtered through rose-colored glasses.

But I have learned one important lesson: I don’t know jack.

Maybe this whole “real life” thing isn’t that easy.

Breeding ground?

By Drew Millard

Hey, it’s Drew here, and I’m still at Governor’s School. But I’m getting a little paranoid, and when you read what I have to say, remember that I am not joking: I’m kind of convinced that I am staying at a state-sponsored, free breeding camp for rising high-school Seniors.

It’s a known fact that North Carolina is trying to produce the best workforce in the world through its vocational programs at every public school. But what about those who don’t want to be a blue-collar worker? Has North Carolina made us the children left behind?

Well, yes and no. If you’re a High School student in North Carolina who wants to go to a good college, you have a challenge. Here in Polk County we have an extremely limited number of Advanced Placement classes to choose from, which are exactly what we need to be taking to get into college because they prove proficiency at a college level.


There is, however, an intellectual oasis where North Carolina teenagers can go and be free: Governor’s School. Here is a place where kids can go into a room and realize that everybody else in here is pretty much just like them — smart, quirky, and interesting enough to get chosen to attend a prestigious summer program in Raleigh.
This place is completely free, paid for by donors and the State. As far as I know, this isn’t a totally regular thing throughout the entire nation.

Which brings me back to my original point. What if, in addition to wanting to produce the best vocational workforce in the world, North Carolina also wanted to produce the smartest children in the world? A popular urban legend around the Governor’s School campus is that approximately twenty percent of every class ends up marrying another Governor’s School alumnus. If my calculations prove me correct, a 20 percent marriage yield every year produces (in the future) 80 marriages per year, which, using the classic assumptions, also yields (in the distant future) approximately 200 very smart kids per Governor’s School alumni household. Also, one must take into consideration the fact that the girl-to-boy ratio here is roughly three-to-one, meaning that somebody probably wants the males to have as many choices as they need to pair off at some point during the summer, in the hopes of that pairing resulting in a marriage.
Now, my facts and figures are probably begging the question: Is Drew having, umm, unauthorized relations at Governor’s School?

Well, friends, the answer to your question, for better or worse, is a resounding No. For one, girls aren’t allowed into the male dormitories, and for two, if they catch evidence of somebody doing it, they both get kicked out.

See, if that were going on here, it would completely defeat the purpose of the secret Governor’s School agenda: to produce stable marriages which produce super-smart kids raised in an academically stimulating environment. They don’t want anybody getting pregnant right now, because that would mean that some couple would be having a super-smart baby as opposed to the super-smart couple attending college.

Point is, North Carolina is sponsoring a camp where we will all find our future life-mates. This is absolutely a conspiracy, and I think that at the end of the summer, there will definitely be some future marriages, and the requisite 2.5 kids and a dog will be forthcoming. We’re all doing our jobs, Governor Easley.

Pam Stone, I just want to say, ‘Hi’

By Drew Millard

I don’t know if you’re reading this, Pam, and I don’t know if my sentiment will make you feel old, but wow, I’m honored. I am thoroughly amazed that I get to share the same newspaper with the same woman who I used to watch on TV. Coach. Radio.
Comedienne. Wow. Again, she was on Coach. I’ve never been on the news. I don’t know if this drags her reputation down or pulls mine up — I think that she is quickly becoming a vastly more popular columnist than I am, though.

That said, Pam, if you think that my generation is doing fine, you’re kind of wrong. We have no idea what we’re doing. To give us any credit otherwise is to flatter us, and we’re young — we don’t need flattering, seeing as we know everything anyways.

It honestly astonishes me that I share this space with her. I’ll stop sucking up in a moment, but let me both plug my blog and her existence in the same paragraph:

The link to my blog on the Tryon Daily Bulletin website is right above the link to Pam Stone’s, which makes me one degree (if one were to operate within the universe of the board game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon), which makes me probably at most four or five degrees away from anyone you can name/shake a stick at. I guess the point I’m trying to make is this: Hi, Pam. I’m Drew. We might not ever meet, but I feel like I know you, probably because I’ve seen you on TV. You’re much more famous and much funnier than I am, but maybe you’ll make me better by osmosis, I guess, if somebody picks up the wrong edition of the Friday paper, and hoping to see your column in there, instead sees mine. Hell, it could happen. Either that, or you’ll inadvertently force me into a very early retirement.

I can say the h-word in the paper, right? I mean, Pam got to swear in her column, so I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to. Oh gosh, I’m turning into a prima dona. Sorry, I’m rambling.

But anyways, if you’ve wondered where I’ve been all summer, I’ll tell you where I am right now. I am currently sitting on a bed in room 306 or Brewer Dormitory Hall at Meredith College in Raleigh North Carolina. The occasion is Governor’s School East, and I am attending in the field of English. This is the first in a series of three columns dealing with life at the Governor’s School, and even though I’ll probably be back in town by the time these hit the news stands, my hope is that it’ll be a nice little retroactive tale from the world outside of Polk County.

I realize that I’ve kind of used up all of my allotted space at this point, so I’ll just leave you with this: I love it here. I love getting up at 7:30 in the morning when none of my friends have thought of going to bed. I love having to sometimes walk to another dormitory if my water gets shut off as a result of construction work. I love having a roommate — it makes Governor’s School almost like going to a six-week-long sleepover, only you can’t go and spend the night with anybody else.

I love my classes here; they challenge my mind and the way I view the world — they literally are expanding me as a person. I kind of even love the fact that the food here is worse than low-grade dog food, which means everyone pigs out in their room at all hours. I love the fact that there are only about ten places in the outside world that we can go to, and I love even more that at least half of these establishments are owned, operated, and run exclusively by hippies.

But most of all, I love the people here, and I love the lesson that Governor’s School is teaching me: the journey is paramount; the destination is secondary.

That said, if Pam’s still reading, I really want her to know that she should probably give my generation a chance. We’ll all come out of this alive. You did.

A smart aleck’s view of immigration

By Drew Millard

I feel slightly silly being a seventeen-year old and writing about political issues — I can’t even vote, you see — but I feel that since everyone in the entire world has an opinion on immigration, I should throw my two cents in, at the risk of losing my hard-earned credibility as your favorite farcical bimonthly columnist.

I have a policy of trying to take the long view on every political issue, and to remain stoically without an opinion on many matters. To illustrate my point, I quote pop-culture guru Chuck Klosterman: “You want to have an abortion? Fine; take my car keys. You think abortion is murder? Well, you’re probably right.” Both sides of an issue have valid points, or else they wouldn’t be presenting their argument. I just try to see these points, and then make judgment as I see fit.

Right now, there is what the pundits call a “crisis” regarding immigration. People are coming into the country in droves illegally from Mexico, and people in America are getting extremely angry about it. Some are even taking the law into their own hands by camping out and watching out for those durned Mexicans, possibly out of nativism or racism, or just good old-fashioned xenophobia. The Department of Homeland Security said in an official statement that “illegal immigration threatens our communities and our national security.” Now I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a little alarmist — I’ve never seen with my own two eyes an illegal immigrant commit a crime, other than being in America when they weren’t supposed to be. Our own U.S. Senate went so far as to officially declare that our national anthem was to be sung in English, which may show that racism, or at least nativism, is not dead in this country, especially in Washington.

Now that I’ve written that and lost my credibility as a columnist, I think that the issue as a whole is much, much too complicated to hold a concrete, partisan opinion on; as I hinted previously, both parties present partially valid arguments.

On the conservative side, I agree that we cannot just let anybody into the country who wants to come in, and the fact that people are coming into America and probably taking jobs from average, hard-working Americans, somehow tweaks that quintessentially nationalistic nerve that everybody has. I think that we need to have more strict enforcement of our borders to protect us from the drugs that are brought into America every day from Mexico, and I think that if someone is living in America, they need to pay taxes on what they earn.

But on the other, more liberal hand, for the most part, illegal immigrants take jobs that traditionally have been taken by, well, illegal immigrants. Undeniably, America is the land of freedom, and I also believe that if somebody wants to get in here, we should let them in, unless they give us a reason not to let them in, like having killed somebody or having ties with organized crime. We don’t need a fortified border to protect us from somebody who just wants to get a job, and in addition, many immigrate to America for the sole justification that they need to support their families, and in America, even working for a nominal wage can support a family in Mexico just as well as any middle-class American could support theirs. Just because somebody is trying to illegally enter a country does not automatically brand them a bad person — I know some illegal immigrants, and they are some of the most honest, hard-working people that I have ever met, and I do not see why we should be stopping people like that from entering this great nation of ours.

Now that I’ve stirred up some ire, there is one position that all Americans do agree on: something needs to be done. Right now, we don’t even know how many people live in America because there are so many undocumented illegals here that we can’t take an accurate census count. The government eventually issues green cards for many, but the only problem with that system is that it can take months to apply for and receive one of those magical green cards. What would probably need to be done is a DMV-type system of issuing Green Cards where you just show up, fill out a couple forms, smile for a picture, and in ten minutes, get one and get on your way. I think that this, however improbable it might be (being 17, I have no knowledge of how the logistics of such as system could be worked out), could, you know, be kind of a good idea.
But I’m just a kid, and this is just a newspaper, so feel free to write to them and tell the world why I’m wrong, which no doubt I am.
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A plea from a thin man

By Drew Millard

Well, I’ve been at this for three months or so now, and I’m sad to report that, no matter how many people think that having one’s own column in the paper is mildly impressive, I still have not gotten one date as a result of this column. Crazy, eh? Who wouldn’t think that a six foot tall skinny kid who can’t bench press his own weight, plays golf and thinks that the movie Zoolander is the highest form of art couldn’t find a female to take out? Beats me.

And yet the problem persists. I am as yet unable to get a date. In fact, since the incipience of this column, I have not been alone in the presence of a female, even casually. Of course, I’m writing this about a month before it will get printed, so there is a distinct possibility that I’ll find a date in the time between now to this column’s publication, therefore rendering its entire existence moot; however, I’ll chance it, as I’ve got a good mood set.

More importantly, I haven’t a prom date. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of a prom date, it is essentially this: you go and take a person of the opposite gender out to get some food, then back to a predetermined location to dance. And that’s it. Oh, and you’re wearing some fancy clothes, and your date is most likely wearing a way-too-expensive dress. Fun, eh?

So in case you’re a prom-dateless high-school girl, here are my qualifications in the prom date arena. I don’t look bad in a suit. I’ll be a gentleman, making sure to compliment your surely radiant dress. While we won’t be traveling in a limo, whatever vehicle we’d be traveling in will surely have some darn good music in it, as I have impeccable musical taste. I won’t care if you dance with other guys once we get to the prom in and of itself (Aside to those not intimately familiar with the concept of prom: there are two usages of the word "Prom." One being the entire experience of Prom — the going out to eat, the ride there, the dancing, going out afterwards — and the other being the prom itself, being "the place where there will be dancing in fancy clothes.").

On the other hand, I shall utilize what little manhood I have left and admit that while I may be perfectly smart, athletic, mildly proficient at golf, and semi-good-looking, I cannot, have not, nor never will be able to dance. This, being augmented by the fact that I’m not man enough to ask someone to prom, is the principle reason that I cannot find a date. My legend as a bad dancer has risen throughout the years so that nobody even tries any more. I can’t keep a beat, I can’t follow time, and I sure as heck can’t attempt to do the two with a partner whilst simultaneously trying to look cool. This will just not happen. But this could somehow be construed as a good thing: being unfettered by such constraints as the threat of my rampant jealousy, my date will feel completely unobligated to dance with me, instead freeing herself up to work the room and have fun, because trust me, I wouldn’t want to be seen dancing with me either.

So all you females out there between the ages of fifteen and twenty, I need one of you to take to the prom. I have laid myself out on the line, outlining how I’m adequate and inadequate, and now I’m asking you to pass judgment on my worth. This is an open invitation for one of you to be my prom date. There will be eating, there will be dancing, there will be singing, there will be music, there will be carousing, and there will be happiness. But only if you come to prom with me.