'Just want to get in a blisswave relationship with an authentic post-indie girl'

As I was perusing Craigslist personal ads the other night (I'm Still Single FYI) I found myself paused on one specific post in the w4w section. An exasperated eighteen year old high school student expressed the sentiment "I just want to date a girl who likes good music for a change". To begin, I must ask how many broads were even 'open' and willing to 'date' you in high school? Are you some sort of lesbian savant? With ascribed Sullen Teen status under your belt, you really have not yet earned the right to be bitter over this issue, unlike certain other seasoned lesbians. Secondly, dating 'queer womyn' with 'good taste in music' is an impossible feat, unless, you define 'good' as any of the artists on the Lilith Fair tour past or present.

A few weeks ago I found myself in the presence of two couples. The first can only be described as Crazy In Love and the other, well, I just didn't 'get' them. The latter pair had brought along a little friend who was even more of a social anomaly. Because our presence as a collective third wheel was cramping the romantic vibes of both couples, I had no choice but to try to engage the other spare in conversation. From here on, let's call her Dum Dum Girl as I'm pretty sure if she were to ever stumble across this blog or acquire Internet access, she would not understand the reference.

As we're all meandering down the street to head to some glorified queer hole in the wall establishment, Dum Dum Girl appears to experience something resembling a psychotic break from reality and proceeds to burst into song and skip ahead of the rest of the pack. As she does this, her chartreuse corduroy jacket and matching beret (hiding an unironic mom haircut) seemed to twinkle under the rays of a nearby street lamp. Without any abashment, she began twirling and chanting the words to 'Beautiful Life' by Ace of Base. This behavior demarcated my one window of opportunity to really try to get through to this independent soul.

There are few people or things I am truly loyal to, so it is important to note I have pledged allegiance to Ace of Base ever since I got a copy of 'The Bridge' on cassette as a child. Not only are they one of the most successful Swedish pop acts of all time (sandwiched in-between ABBA and The Cardigans), their music is still 'culturally relevant' as exhibited in this blissed out cover of 'Don't Turn Around' by Candy Claws from last year.

Below is the conversation I had with Dum Dum Girl, verbatim, and it will become apparent by the end why I could no longer bear to talk to or make eye contact with her for the rest of the evening.

[Dum Dum Girl is still twirling and singing 'Beautiful Life' while no one pays attention except me]

Jonathon Moxon: They were really ahead of their time.
Dum Dum Girl: Who?
JM: Ace of Base? You were just singing 'Beautiful Life'?
DDG: Oh yeah? How were they ahead of their time?
JM: Because so many current electronic music acts are derivative of their sound.
DDG: Like Kraftwerk?
JM: Um, [trying not to laugh] Kraftwerk predate Ace of Base.
DDG: Oh. To be honest I've never actually listened to Kraftwerk.
JM [to herself]: No kidding.

Perhaps if Dum Dum Girl had chosen to belt out a different Ace of Base hit, things could have been different between us. Maybe I would have asked her out instead of systematically ignoring her. The thing is that the only Ace of Base song I happen to dislike is coincidentally, 'Beautiful Life', and only because of its pivotal role in the 1998 film, 'A Night at the Roxbury'. I loathe this film from watching it ad nauseam in elementary school as a form of babysitting in a diagnostic curriculum.

The 'school' I attended from kindergarten through 8th grade was in retrospect, breeding ground for bizarre behavior. Teachers frequently hooked up with lonely single parents. In music class, instead of singing, we were graded on our ability to prepare elaborate lip syncing routines (and when I say 'elaborate' I mean, one of my peers actually purchased a fog machine for one of his performances) and my decade spent at this place was topped off with a valediction speech, delivered by none other than your humble narrator. The principal said it was 'the best speech he'd heard in 25 years'. Clearly, he hadn't been listening. He was probably too busy staring down the cleavage of divorcees in low-cut sundresses to hear my vitriolic sense of humor developing at age 13. The speech was basically an inside joke - to myself. A large portion was dedicated to the most important thing I'd learned in history class that year. Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. MacDonald (or JAM as I casually referred to him, as if we were old pals), had spent his time in office as a raging alcoholic. I finished off that portion with a direct quote from JAM himself, "I used to lay in bed with a bottle. Or two. Or three". Why I felt compelled to include this in my parting words of wisdom to the classmates I'd known since age 4, I have no idea. I am often resentful of the fact that not a single teacher ever picked up on my budding childhood bipolarity as there were plenty of red flags over the years but, as demonstrated, they couldn't even hold down a proper curriculum, let alone, recognize the signs of mental illness in their students.

In fact, it wouldn't be until tenth grade that a teacher would finally attempt to 'get through to me'. One day during 'enriched' science class, the teacher pulled me out in the hall to ask me if 'things were alright at home' and to inquire as to why I would always fall asleep at my lab post. This conversation would have been flattering if only the teacher didn't have a noticeable fetish for vulnerable young girls. I let him know I wasn't interested in his 'services' after he put his arm around me in a consoling manner and offered to 'work with me after school'. I had wanted a student-teacher relationship ever since I heard the words 'Mary Kay Letourneau' in 1997, but not with a man, and especially not with a man who announced to his class with laughter while conducting an experiment that 'Lithium is what crazy people take'. On a list of Top 100 pick-up lines to get into my pants, that doesn't even chart. It didn't help my cause that my lab partner was a boy who spent the hour long periods not talking to me, but drawing a series of portraits of me with a gun poised to my temple, blowing my brains out, all because I wouldn't go out with him. His favorite thing to ask me was, 'if I was Eddie Vedder, would you like me any better?', a line from the Local H song. If someone were to ask me that now, I would find this downright romantic, but in high school, the answer to this query was always a resounding 'no' as Pearl Jam were my least favorite band to emerge out of Seattle.

On par with the lip syncing competitions, another one of the alternative teaching methods the staff loved to pull in elementary school was 'Movie Day'. In fifth grade we were informed in our 'film studies' class that in school, only school board approved films could ever be screened. By seventh grade, we had burned through all of these approved films and had moved on to our teachers' personal collections. Enter 'A Night at the Roxbury'. To this day, I still believe Ace of Base's 'Beautiful Life' should have been listed in the end credits above both Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan as it is basically played on a loop the entire time and has more 'substance' than both of their performances combined.

Movie Days generally happened when it was 'too hot' to teach, despite that we were inside a newly constructed school with central air conditioning. It was during those sort of 'lessons' that I was introduced to movies like 'White Squall' (how homoerotic for elementary school), 'Drop Dead Fred' and our science teacher's favorite volume from the Indiana Jones series. However, I can't even describe what Indiana Jones looks like because I was unfortunately seated beside a developmentally handicapped boy, Ellery, during the film. Ellery spent the entire time lying face down and humping the carpeted floor. I was so fixated by this spectacle happening in front of all the students and Indiana Jones loving teachers that I missed the entire screening. Luckily, there was no Indiana Jones comprehension test afterward as I would have only been fit to describe what hips look like when gyrating through sweatpants. Once, in sixth grade, there was a Sarah Jessica Parker Before She Was Famous reading comprehension test. Instead of taking us to the theatre to experience 'culture' close-up, we learned the meaning of the term off-Broadway from a poorly written narrative about an actress none of us had yet to become familiar with.

The movie I have watched more times in a school setting (not counting 'Killing Us Softly 3', a film that must present the University of Toronto with monthly royalty checks as I've chuckled through it four times in three years of study) is Center Stage. For those who were not subjected to it year after year, Center Stage is a movie following a group of dance hopefuls in their first year at the American Ballet Academy. Every spring when it became time for our annual dance unit, we watched this film in preparation, as a warm-up to get limber for our rhythmless square dancing routines in the gymnasium. Early on in the film, one of the main dancers, 'Cooper Nielson', is seen stretching out his ripped body, wearing some pretty taut sweats that serve to accentuate his gigantic package. While it is adequate to say I have never been face to face with a penis 'in real life', even 12 year old me knew it couldn't possibly be that big on its own without the aid of at least two pairs of tube socks. And when this comically big cock came on screen, it never failed to elicit laughter, shrieking, and probably a few silent tears from the faint of heart or my Jehovah's Witness neighbor.