Takes My Breath Away

So Toolmaster of Brainerd didn't even make the ballot, so barring some populist uprising, it won't be the class song. My problem: what do I do now? Not just about the song, but about changing the graduation status quo in general.

I suppose I have two options: keep fighting, or drop it.

Right now I'm leaning towards drop it. I worked at it, but it didn't work; maybe it's time to just stop caring about it and move on. Graduation has always been lame, and will be so forever. The song will be a drum-heavy rock song about love, the speeches will be preachy and earnest and boring, and that's okay. High school graduation is nothing special, and I'll have plenty of time and opportunities to do fun and interesting things later in life. When you don't care about something it doesn't hurt as bad.

But of course, that's not what I really want to do. I want this shit to be extraordinary. I want it to be silly and absurd and funny and totally awesome. And you know what? It probably won't be. But I'd regret it something terrible if I didn't even try.

Part of me is saying that I've tried enough, but I think I still have a chance to make a difference, and I know I have the energy. The only question is, how? Logan's gonna do his own lame speech (no offense Logan, but it will be lame. No matter how cool or interesting a BHS class speaker is, they're graduation speech will be boring), the song's gonna be fucking CARTEL, and the general atmosphere is gonna be YAWNFEST.

Sadly, legitimate avenues of change are closing rapidly, so I'll probably be tempted to plan some sort of prank. If I can't have the graduation I want, no one will! But besides being selfish, that plan has a very good chance of not working, or hurting someone, or getting me in trouble.

I suppose I can just try to raise a bit more of a ruckus about the class song thing. Apparently, Stenglein, Heise, and Rusk were the rejecters for Toolmaster, and Stenglein said something about how the songs were judged to be "appropirate for school" and "singable," something I would consider Toolmaster to be. Ted Leo's "Me and Mia"? Not so much.

I smell a conspiracy here. This looks like a job for an investigative reporter; now, where could I find one of those?