High School Does End

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books, Bowling for Soup, bullying, Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds, Jello Biafra, music, school shootings, schools, television

Bowling for Soup

My previous post based on the episode from the TV show “Criminal Minds” has given me food for thought. In that episode, ten years after a school shooting occurred at their high school, there was one group that saw continued to see themselves as above the others. They were even called the “Top Ten.” This group still excluded one young man who felt he should have been part of that group but wasn’t and was still excluded. That exclusion was what led him to start killing members of that group.

That episode and post, along with seeing the video for the song, “High School Never Ends” by Bowling for Soup, had me reflecting on my post high school days. In high school, I was nearly what one of the characters in “Crime Scene Investigation” used to describe his high school days, a ghost. I did engage in some extra curricular activities in school and I wasn’t bullied, except for the odd occasion but unlike most of junior high, I never walked the halls in fear. Saying that, I was considered a ‘loser’ or weird or other things by a number of students.

However, in my own mind, I did return to my old high school in triumph a few months after graduation after I became a marine. Walking the halls in uniform with stomach in and chest out and receiving no hostile or even patronizing rebuffs from anyone, I felt I put any specter of high school to rest. I had become a marine and had made something of myself.

At the conclusion of the previous post, I mentioned how I ran into some former jocks and had a beer with them. I was never friends with any of them in high school so I thought barriers had been broken down. However, I saw one of them a few weeks later and he gave me a patronizing “Hi.” Like those in the “Criminal Minds” episode, he obviously saw me in the same light as high school despite the fact that I had served my country and seen the world through my own eyes, which he had only seen on TV and textbooks.

I’ve never been to a high school reunion. I did try to go to my five year one but no one answered when I dialed the phone number given in the radio advert. By the time the ten year reunion came around, I was already living in the UK. By chance, my mother crossed paths with someone I was in high school with and who was on the committee for the reunion. Not wanting to go on record as ‘whereabouts unknown,’ I instructed my mother to tell this person that I was living in London and married with a baby boy. Since then, I have always speculated if it was announced I was living in London and what the reactions of my graduating class would be. I believe a good number of people would have been impressed that I was living in such a city. However, there would have been others, the ones who thought I was a loser, would have claimed that I was living in the biggest slum in London and working at McDonald’s. Neither speculation would have been correct.

Jello Biafra

Nowadays, I wonder if I’m still listed as living in London at reunions. I don’t anymore, I live in rural Gloucestershire. I amuse myself once in a great while by speculating what those from the Mainland Regional High School Class of 79 would make of me should I ever run into any of them. After all, while I’m not some corporate big wig or a star in the arts, although I have written and published two books, I don’t think I’ve done too bad. However, in the end, I choose not to worry about it because like Jello Biafra once said, high school isn’t all that important and it’s not the best years in most people’s lives. It certainly wasn’t for me. Although I didn’t hear him say this until 2005, I’m glad I followed his advice in regards to my high school years and those awful years before by pissing on its grave and getting the hell out of town. When you do that, the less significant those days become.

To buy He Was Weird, go to: https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1492123102&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

 

Bullying and School Shootings As Seen on TV: Criminal Minds- Part 1

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books, bullying, Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds, He Was Weird, school shootings, schools, television

Some of the team from Criminal Minds

Last week, I posted about bullying and school shootings from an episode of the long running TV series, “Crime Scene Investigation.” This week and for the next two after, I will talk about similar episodes from the series, “Criminal Minds.” I’ll start with the earliest episode on the subject and move on to the most recent which was from the current season. Therefore, this post will deal with the fourth episode of season seven entitled “Painless.”

A brief synopsis of the programme: Ten years prior, a school shooting and bombing took place at a high school in Boise, Idaho. As the survivors, along with family and friends of the slain, prepare for the ten year memorial service, the principal of the school is murdered the same way as the shooter had done ten years earlier. While the service is allowed to go on, two of the survivors are also murdered. The investigation by the Criminal Minds team reveals that those two survivors were part of a group called “The Top Ten.” These were students who survived the ordeal and who afterwards, went on tours of schools and talk shows to tell all about what happened on that fateful day. They comprised all the high school social groups, jocks, stoners, nerds, cheerleaders, etc. As the climax unfolds, we learn that one young teen is wrongfully left out and that the one popular boy who was murdered actually lied about his role in the shooting. He said that he was the only one who looked the shooter in the eye when in fact it was the boy who got left out. We also learn that this left out boy was knocked out by the bomb that was set off and therefore, he didn’t get the chance to tell his story. This is why he killed the principal and the other two survivors because he was wrongfully denied his chance at fame. Unfortunately for him, he never will get his chance to tell what really happened because the Criminal Minds team is forced to shoot him dead.

While I was watching it, comparisons and contrasts to my book, “He Was Weird,” came to mind. First the contrasts: Unlike Mark in my book, the shooter in the Criminal Minds episode was a popular kid and captain of the wrestling team. That is what befuddled investigators as to why he carried out the massacre. It also turned out that he had assistance from another boy who was never suspected because at the time of the shooting/bombing, he was satisfying his marijuana addiction. Mark, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of this guy, badly bullied and totally acted alone. Another contrast is that after the shooting on the TV show, the shooter’s family becomes national pariahs and are unable to move out of Boise. Contrast that to Mark’s family where his mother reverts back to her maiden name and with the help of relatives, are able to relocate to another state. And although the school officials know about what Mark has done, they are willing to give his younger sister and brother a fair chance.

Similarities between the programme and the book come in the fact that “He Was Weird,” ends with the ten year memorial service of the shooting. At the end of the programme, those at the service light a candle to honour the dead with each person lighting a candle and saying the name of someone who died that day. The younger brother of the shooter, who was killed in the bomb blast, says the name of his older brother. At the ten year service at the end of “He Was Weird,” Mark’s sister points out that actually eighteen people died that fateful day and not the seventeen that had been talked about for the past ten years since her brother carried out the shooting.

On a personal note, one thing I gleaned from this particular episode was the comment that even after high school, the social structures don’t change. The “Top Ten” still thought they had an air of privilege about them, even ten years after graduation. When I came out of the marines, four years after graduation, I ran into three of the jocks and outside a bar and had a beer with them. I thought that the high school group crap was no more. However, when I saw one of them a two months later, he said “hi” to me in a patronizing tone. I took this to mean that even though I had served in the marines, I wasn’t good enough for him. Maybe he was still in high school in his mind. I didn’t let it get to me and if I did manage to get to a high school reunion, I wouldn’t be ashamed of who I’ve become and what I’ve accomplished in my life.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491412808&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

 

Bullying and School Shootings From TV- CSI

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bullying, Columbine, Crime Scene Investigation, films, Lionel Shriver, police, school shootings, schools, teachers, television, We Need to Talk About Kevin

As I stated in my last post, there are over fifty books that deal with school shootings, many of which show the shooter as a victim of bullying. My book, He Was Weird, is one of those. However, in spite of all of these books, Hollywood has not picked up on this and made any films about school shootings. In fact, the only movie I know of about a school shooting is a BBC production of Lionel Shriver’s book, “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” I wasn’t too impressed with the film as it left out what I felt were important parts of the story and the shooting scene was crap. Lionel should sue. Fortunately, television hasn’t been afraid to deal with the subjects of bullying and school shootings and I will be looking at these in my next few posts.

Scene from the Bully for You episode on CSI.

The first one I know about appeared in Season 2 of “Crime Scene Investigation,” CSI for short. The title of the particular episode explains it all, “Bully for You.” It opens with the discovery of a dead body of a boy in the boys’ bathroom of a local high school. Almost immediately, the investigation of the CSI team uncovers the fact that the dead boy was a high school bully. Therefore, all of the victims of the bully are interviewed who tell their individual stories of how they were bullied, some are rather bad, but it is deduced that none of them could have shot the bully.

Further interviews and the obvious great forensic work by the CSI team lead to the inevitable twist in the story. In the end, it is discovered that the shooter was a female guidance counselor at the school. A background check showed that she was traumatised by an school shooting at her previous school, where she was assistant principal and happened two weeks after Columbine. At that school, one day, eleven people were shot and killed by the shooter. She explained it all happened because some Sophmore  didn’t like people making jokes about his glasses. That was her justification for shooting the bully. It was better to shoot one bully than to have a mass shooting like the one she experienced. Does she have a point? Maybe, but it was no excuse for murder.

What I liked about this particular episode was that it neither glorified the bully or justified the murder. For me, it reinforced my belief that bullying is wrong but there are better more effective means of dealing with it than taking lives.

To buy He Was Weird, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490815891&sr=1-1&keywords=he+was+weird