Saturday, September 22, 2007

Jodi Foster, John Hinkley, Carson Junior High School, and Agent Orange

I remember the day that Reagan was shot vividly.

It was in the afternoon that the news had spread throughout Carson Junior High School in Mesa, Arizona. I was living with Grandpa Phil's son and his wife. (I will never understand how that came to be). I was in 7th grade.

I walked in to what must have been 5th or 6th period and everyone was talking about Reagan having been shot. I snapped and no sooner had I gained composure when two men in suits cam into the room, escorted me out of the building and to the administration building and office where I was kept in an interior office until late in the evening.

I was not treated particularly well but I can't now recall any of the details with any specificity. I do remember some jackass making it clear that despite all the hubbub I wasn't "important" and my requests for something to drink were met with disdain.

I have always believed that Hinkley was on to something and that Jodi Foster is somehow part of our illustrious family, if only biologically.

I later ended up going to high school with a couple of members of JFA (a skate punk band) and it stands for Jodi Foster's Army. I was quite careful never to mention anything about Jodi in high school as I knew for me and many others it is a one-way ticket to being forever viewed as a lunatic.

However, listening to and knowing JFA the band got me into punk rock. I can't say I was a punker and probably couldn't even have cut it as a poser. As close as I got was the night I stole Grandpa Phil's car, put on my died-by-myself-orange levis and other thrift store attire and drove to Madison Square Garden in Phoenix, AZ. It was on Van Buren Street-the infamous street in Phoenix where hookers, pimps, drug dealers and "others" strut their stuff. Madison Square Garden was an amateur wrestling arena with the cage in the center. The bands would play inside. When Agent Orange saw me in orange levis, I was invited into the pit. I was quite drunk from the 75 cent beer sold from a keg. Oh, and I was 15. Yeah. The last time I saw the physical building it had been remodeled into a flower shop.

The rest is a blur but I do remember secret service threatening to burn the place down when I gained consciousness in the parking lot outside the building. Don't ask me what happened in the mean time for I don't know and I don't want to know.

It seems that Punk Rock and Reaganomics don't mix.

(Agent Orange is still one of my favorite bands).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

its odd that you remember Reagan's shooting so vividly. You were in class? Odd..... I dont know too many public schools that were open on Sunday. Which was when he was shot. Sunday, March 30th 1980. Hmmmm..... odd:)

Anonymous said...

I've never read this blog before, and probably won't again, but to the douche bag "anonymous" who wrote the last comment, Ronald Reagan wasn't even president on Sunday, March 30, 1980. He was, however, president on Monday, March 30, 1981...the day he was shot.

Anonymous said...

I sit corrected.