See I was going to start off with something altogether different, but this just popped into my head. As things do. And so I went with it. As I tend to.
Actually, it reminds me of my youth. No, not that I ever went to a teddy bear's picnic (that happened much later in life), but that I am from a generation that was subjected to the heinous practise of "initiation". And by that I mean the general high school hazing that you have to suffer at the hands of your seniors just because they intend exacting revenge on the people who did it to them. Not have your genitalia mutilated to please some withered old biddy blind from too much homegrown spirits.
Not that the acts of initiation are ever revamped, reworked or improved upon. I bet you sticking a 13 year old boy's head in a toilet goes waaaay back. I must admit to particularly liking the one where you had to measure the inside of a girl's leg with a match end-over-end and when you dropped the match, were forced to start from the beginning. I also didn't mind the carrying stuff around or mild rebukes.
At this point it should be pointed out that the Matric Goliath that took a particular interest in me was none other than Shaun Koen - of South African Heavy Weight Wrestling fame. He used to delight in hanging me upside down precariously over a gaping stairwell and make me sing dirty songs - and all because with a startlingly bright brushcut, I was known far and wide as Billy Idol. One of these dirty songs started off very much like the line in the heading, but just went directly past begin, did not collect R200 and ended straight in "red faced from embarrassment and not blood rushing to my upside down head". If only I knew that a few short years later I'd be consumed with trying the very subject of my ditties out on any young lady willing to give me the time of day. In hindsight, it was probably the audience being tortured, considering my singing voice.
Strange then, that I should still be equated to Billy Idol. I actually got up on stage and mimed along to Mony Mony once at a school dance. On a dare. For R2. Which I still haven't received. Must be where I got my taste for adulation. Or at least, scorn and pity disguised as adulation...
And my resigned acceptance of playing for no pay...
Anyway, I feel that I am a better person for having had to experience initiation. It taught us a level of humility that was necessary back then. Somehow the liberals got it wrong in the ensuing years though. By the time it was my turn to victimise some hapless lightie, the practise had been banned. In fact on our "40 days" a particularly vigilant teacher with fuck all better to do than spoil our innocent fun put a stop to our intended "bog-brushing" of one of my mates' younger brothers. We'd have been very unpopular for having our Matric Farewell cancelled...
Anyway, it was chaos. Once, a kid ran up to me and punched me and ran away and there was nothing I could legally do...
And don't even get me started on the retarded mass gymnastics routine we were expected to do in our final year for the opening of our new local stadium. We disagreed. Our headmaster actually went up an entire octave, morphed into a delightful shade of demonic purple and threw his lunchbox at his desk. Our barely concealed guffaws didn't help matters much.
Ah, school rocked! I can't imagine how people couldn't have enjoyed it. Here's an institution that forces all your friends to come together every day and hang out. And people complained?
NGDG: Today the honourable Neal Goldwyer chooses to quote from the one man in this world that is more droll than he is. John Cleese "Greece is collapsing, the Iranians are getting aggressive, and Rome is in disarray. Welcome back to 430 BC[E]."
Spread The Love. Now Also The Tagline For Cell C... Fuckers.
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