so, a couple of weeks ago i signed on to be a judge for the wisconsin historical society's national history day event. basically a bunch of middle school kids picked someone they though had been influential, either for good (john kennedy) or evil (charlie chaplin), and present that person in one of a handful of categories including group skit, monologue, or poster thing. i was a judge for the group skits, but those were all pretty boring and don't really warrant much discussion here. in retrospect, i wish i had been assigned to the poster presentations, cause those were really awesome, with kids going way over the top (tesla coils? sold!) and choosing pretty unexpected cubjects (coco chanel?).



one memorable lil dude chose kurt cobain. seriously, i've kinda forgotten the impact that kurt had/has on alienated youth. apparently he still has that "beyond the grave" mojo working for him, cause lil dude was decked out in black jnco's with dangly chain things, a black suit jacket over a well worn black nirvana shirt, and of course stringy (dyed) black hair.

what really pushed me into the total shock and awe territory was the section of the presentation that was dedicated to conspiracy theories and courtney accusations, inclusing an approximate number of people who had committed sympathy suicide or whatever the technical name for that shit is. supposedly when lil dude was making his presentation, he said something to the effect of suicide not being cowardly or blah blah blah.

i really wanted to take lil dude aside and let him know that he was on the right track and that everything's gonna get better when he gets to college... maybe give him s copy of double nickels on the dime or the first pixies album or perhaps something by the meat puppets or whatever, but the idea felt weirdly similar to going back in time and trying to prevent the kennedy assassination. lil dude is gonna have to slog through adolescence like the rest of us i guess, and hopefully be better for it on the other side.