Everything is Funny - Beginnings

The stars were aligning in my small and naive universe. I had spent my ninth grade year shamelessly laying the groundwork for a tenth grade spent not on the fringe, but in the mix. To this point, I had carved out a noble existence as a big-for-my-age, guitar-playing quiet guy who might have some funny things to say if you pulled it out of him. I had fingered a girl or two. I would soon have my own car. By most accounts, I had all the life stats in place to continue down that well-paved path and achieve Alpharetta enlightenment; safety, security, and a golf membership. I took to the path willingly, for in the gayness of my 9^th grade ego, all I wanted was to move forward, upward, to what I thought was better.

I didn’t know it then, but my greatest hurdle to breaking through to all that I would later discover was “giving a fuck”. I had plenty of fucks to give at this point, a surplus of ego, and I subconsciously searched my small landscape for ways to portray myself in a positive light. Among these self promotions was football. I genuinely liked the sport, but my motivation for joining came more from wearing my jersey through the halls on Thursdays than excelling at the game. Football and expanding one’s mind do not often go together, but the sport can lead to wonderful things when combined with my second favorite sport: observing and making fun of people.

There was no environment richer for a budding maker of fun than football practice. There were more awks, man-childs, meatheads, and overzealous ROTC kids per capita here than anywhere else in my world. It was as if the sport attracted colorful outliers for my amusement. Despite my aforementioned ego surplus, I had always had an exceptional ability and strange interest in watching and imitating people. Perhaps being so ever-conscious of myself allowed me to clearly see the ways that other people dealt with the world. It should also be noted that I have never felt badly for this talent. It’s called “making fun” because fun is made where there was none before. This is always a positive thing. I’m the first to appreciate when fun is made at my “expense”. There was plenty of fun to be made at practice and I looked forward to it each day, though my audience for such shenanigans usually consisted only of Goldberg, an aspiring in-crowd disciple in his own right; and he only laughed because he was waiting for bigger things to come along.

Boz farted his way into my world in the midst of a long summer practice, as the team’s leaders led us in a very focused and serious stretching routine. Some of the more daring on the team had broken formation and risked running laps to relocate and scoot their pads over towards Boz, as he was about to perform his famous sideshow. With his feet over his head for a particular back stretch, Boz could intake a pint or so of summer air into his ass with a sudden rushing sound, then blow it all out in what amounted to a “10” of a fart, consistently and repeatedly. As one can imagine, for some on the team, this was the greatest thing they had ever seen or heard. I happened to be stretching nearby, and noticed the concentration on Boz’s face as he worked hard to please his audience. Throughout practice that day, I took note of Boz’s uncanny skills in the arts of making fun.

Boz was another great observer of men, and it was impressive to watch him work. Everything must be done subtly at football practice as the environment is not friendly to boisterous discussion. Boz was brazen enough to use the long, afternoon shadows in combination with his forearm to produce a shadow penis that he could use to subtly hump unknowing players and coaches for the amusement of anyone standing behind them. He had a prominent brow ridge that provided an array of funny imitative faces to work with, a naturally funny walk, and a low, distinctive voice that always registered just below the ears of whoever he was talking about. This allowed for a pointed analysis of our coach’s inhuman posture or for quiet imitations of Shep, our valiant senior captain, angrily pleading for us to pay attention and learn our position. Boz did learn his position well enough however, and developed a reputation as a punishing, hard-hitting linebacker. This was partly due to his expanded mind, with which I am actually referring to the many cubic centimeters of mind that filled his very large cranium. Boz would use this wrecking ball atop his shoulders to hit opponents with total disregard for himself. As it turned out, my cranium was also large enough to be noticed by the older kids on the team. This put us in immediate company as the big-headed kids and fun was made on our behalf. Unfortunately for Boz, his big-headedness and years of throwing himself at people with Cro-Magnon invincibility would weaken his neck and force his early retirement from football, creating his next chapter as one of the leaders of a movement.

Boz was funny and all, but as I mentioned, I gave too many fucks at the time to share the social ballot with a fringe third-party candidate like Boz. Besides, Boz already had a running mate, the quiet maniac known as Benjamin Busby. I didn’t know much about Busby, but I had heard he was crazy. In middle school, he was the kid who was a little too serious and too interested in covert military operations for the comfort of his peers. He was intense and quiet and had heavy eyelids and a dangerous smile that suggested he was about to do something crazy. A few weeks earlier, he had shown up to first period with vodka on his breath and after a few loud laughs and untimely outbursts, he had vomited next to the teacher’s desk. In the fallout of this incident, which was well known in our grade, I would see others ask him innocent questions about this, and he would laugh loudly and flash his red eyes and Socratically turn their questions back on them, confusing them and earning his reputation as crazy. Ben’s iconic laugh was increasingly bold and robust that year as he grew away from his days of discipline as a skilled second basemen, and, like Boz, was increasing drawn by life beyond the path paved for him.

Rather than any one enlightening moment on my part, it was the absurdity of the high school social landscape that drew me, a “normal kid”, closer to these two icons of iconoclasm. As metro Atlanta transitioned from summer to fall, our sophomore class underwent a social renaissance thanks to the power of the automobile. This milestone opened up a diversity of hang-out spots unimaginable before; the power lines, Newtown Park, Emerson’s basement. Each hosted large gatherings on any given weekend, and everyone was finding their place in a newly-shuffled deck. Boz and Busby were always there and found their value quickly. Boz found he could use his Spanish to talk the Mexicans at Cub Foods into buying beer for us and Busby could drink his share and create controversy, which was his love.

Unfortunately, the quantity of new hang outs did not ensure quality. There was lameness abound. In the great driving reshuffle, we had all three landed in what would be known as Pop2, a highly defined second tier of popularity that involved some “early drivers”, b-level hot girls, and a melodramatic leader, Emerson, who was constantly enduring some epic tragedy. I had somehow found my own way into this fracas and was proudly playing chauffeur each weekend to a younger girl. We would frequent these parties and make our rounds while Ben and Boz were also at every dirt lot party and basement hangout without fail. Inevitably, being the social scientists we are, the three of us converged to discuss the amazing popular stratification that had taken place in those months. We laughed our way through a full system of Pop1, Pop2, Intermediate, and Untouchable groups and all of the ridiculous people in them. In our own interests, we managed to keep our funny little splinter cell under the radar until Emerson, leader of the Pop2, found out he was a central part of this labeling system and, being the Emerson he was, didn’t like this very much. Boz was confronted and, thinking quickly, was able to divert all of the heat onto Goldberg, who was still trying his best to find Pop1 anyway. So we maintained our precarious position as observers of all and allies to most, forming a group of like minds that in the coming years would only become crazier, always changing but always striving for the infinitely funny and real. In the hilarity of it all I found that I had given up my inane pursuits and was happy to delve in this new world.