In the beginning of the 95-96 school year, I was acquainted with one of the nicest people in the world, whose name I will omit. He was a new teacher and I could tell this was going to be a great year because of how he talked to us.| My Evil Prohibitionist Teacher |
| Paulo |
In the beginning of the 95-96 school year, I was acquainted with one of the nicest people in the world, whose name I will omit. He was a new teacher and I could tell this was going to be a great year because of how he talked to us.
"Blah blah blah you better do good, or I will grab you by the behind and drag you blah blah blah..."
Or something along those lines. And this was just the first day.
A few days later, while "teaching" us something, he told us to get out our notebooks. I picked mine up and opened it to a blank page. I looked up and he was giving me this scary evil look.
"You better get that off your notebook by tomorrow!"
On my notebook was a sticker with a picture of a pot leaf. Around the leaf it said "LEGALIZE MARIJUANA - JUST SAY ‘KNOW MORE.’" On my binder I had another one with the same picture but around it said something like "FOOD PAPER FIBER MEDICINE - EDUCATE YOURSELF." Apparently this guy didn’t appreciate the fact that I wanted people to be educated rather than listen to the prohibitionist lies taught at school. I was like, "Okay, whatever."
On the way out of class I told my friends I wouldn’t remove the stickers because there was nothing in the handbook against it. I wasn’t encouraging drug use, or even talking about drug use. I was just encouraging people to learn more about marijuana/hemp (which is not necessarily a drug.)
The guy hears me say this and holds me back. He gives me the evil look again and says something about "didn’t you hear what Mr. Principal Man said at that assembly yesterday?" I had, but he hadn’t said anything about what I did. Then I left.
My mom heard about this little incident and was so supportive. She was like, "Yeah, you better remove it! Do what they say!" Thanks mom.
So that time he ended up winning.
Time went by and the guy did all sorts of bad things. He claims to have broken the clock off the wall, wrote "ASS" real big on the board, threatened to strangle people, said some people wouldn’t survive all day, threw stuff at people, kicked me and a friend out of class for two or three days JUST FOR TURNING TO THE WRONG PAGE, stared evilly at people for no reason, called us names, etc, etc...
Some friends and I would go to the counselor nearly every day to complain. He wouldn’t help at all. They’re just so friendly at my school. (I know I probably should have gone to someone more powerful, but even if I had, the same thing would of happened.)
Then I started compiling a list of bad things he was doing. Every once and a while I would turn it in to the counselor. Still, nothing happened. After almost half the school year, and nearly one hundred entries, I just gave up. There was no hope. My parents wouldn’t even help!
Maybe there was hope. I had an idea. I would publish the list in my zine, along with his name and the school’s address. Maybe someone would help me out.
I typed out an article entitled ‘MY (EVIL SUBJECT) TEACHER, PROHIBITIONIST AND SERIAL KILLER.’ It talked about my arguments about pot I’d had with him (They were great! I stumped him!), and had most of the list printed in it. (I lost part of it.)
The zine didn’t come out until the end of summer, because of my rule that I have to buy a new Flaming Lips CD to review for each issue.
This year I came back to school and found that I had somehow passed his class, and didn’t have to take it again. The downside was that they gave me the idiot for homeroom.
I distributed my zine all over school. It was cool! People dug it. I gave out a lot and sold a bunch of them too.
One day I came out of a class next to his. As I passed him he called out my name.
"I didn’t do it!" I said.
"Oh you didn’t?"
"Nope."
"Well, I’ve got two words for you."
"Okay, two words..."
"Defamation of character."
"That’s three words. See look...defamation...of..." I counted the words out on my fingers for him. Silly teacher couldn’t even count!
"Yeah, well you go home to your..."
"One...two...three...three words..."
"Go home to your home to your you go home to your go home" He suddenly developed a weird stuttering problem. I continued counting it out so he would get the point.
"Go home to your fancy your fancy go home to your fancy home go home."
Still counting.
"...to your fancy computer and go home fancy and look that up."
My computer is fancy? That’s new to me! I thought it was a crappy Packard Bell! Oh, I understand! He thought that since my zine is nicely made, it’s not because I have a little bit of talent in that area, it’s because I have a fancy computer that did it for me!
"Okay," I said.
"And while you’re at it, look up the word LAWYER."
"Okay," says I and I walked off. As I was walking away, I said something loudly to the effect of "too bad you don’t have a case since it was all true!"
I went to my next class, then lunch, then the rest of my classes. I wasn’t called to the office or anything. I told everyone that the teacher wanted to sue me because of my zine, AND IT SOLD LIKE CRAZY!!! I wanted to thank him for the free advertising!
After school, I was telling the story and selling my zine, and suddenly, I heard someone call out my name. I turned around. Shit. It was the vice principal.
"Come here," he yelled.
I ran over to him.
"What did you just sell?"
"A magazine."
He looked up and thought about it for a couple seconds. "Come to my office tomorrow morning," he said.
"Okay," I told him and ran off to my bus.
That night, I went on the net and posted the events of the day along with the article onto alt.zines, alt.drugs, alt.drugs.pot, and some others. I asked if the idiot had a case against me.
In the morning I checked my email and everyone said no, not really, and that I should get witnesses. One guy told me that he had sent him a package. Woohoo! Take that Mr. Evil Man!
The next morning I went into the office looking for the principal. My friend, who had his copy confiscated came with me (he was going to get the zine back, or they were gonna give him a dollar!) The vice principal was in a meeting, so we left. I saw him a few minutes later just standing in the hall. I went up to him.
"Don’t come to my office this morning. I’ll call you in later."
"Okay."
I was called to the office during second hour.
I went into the vice principal’s office and sat down. The counselor sat down next to me.
He asked me questions about whether or not I was making money, and called my zine crap and stuff.
"What’s this stuff in here about marijuana?"
"It’s about how it’s good for people, and good for the earth, and isn’t as bad as they teach you in school. It can make four times as much paper as trees, and can be harvested three times a year..."
"Okay, let’s say this whole thing didn’t exist. What about it then?"
I told him the same stuff.
"Okay, and did I see the outline of a naked woman in there?" He chuckled a little as he looked at the ASCII nudity.
"Yes."
"And what is this about Mr. (Evil Head Man)?"
"It’s a list of things he did that the school refused to do anything about!" I answered kind of angrily. Why the hell was I in trouble!? I’m not the one who did the stuff on the list! He just kind of laughed.
He told me all this garbage about slander or something, and how it was wrong that I called him a serial killer, and that I could get sued, but how Mr. Evil Head Man was such a nice guy he wasn’t too upset.
They gave me two days of their in-school-suspension.
The next day I went to the ISS room. They made me watch a crappy video with some Mr. Rogers type guy. Then I had to fill out this stupid worksheet. There was a question that said something like ‘What would make you extremely happy?’ I answered truthfully, which is what I thought they wanted.
And some other stuff. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote. They spazzed at this! They called my mom in, gave her a copy of it, and told her that had it been someone else, they would have gotten out of school suspension, but they just gave me two more days of ISS. How nice of them!
The next three days when I had to fill out dumb worksheets, I lied my ass off to seem like some kinda lovey-dovey government-loving good Christian idiot.
I finally got out of ISS and I thought it was all over. It wasn’t.
A few weeks, later my parents got a letter in the mail saying I had to talk to a probation officer. I supposedly had ‘harassed’ someone.
We went in to talk to him, and he showed us a package. It was full of pro-hemp flyers.
"Did you send him this?"
"No."
It was obvious that I hadn’t. It was postmarked San Francisco. Idiots.
"Okay, they just told me to look into it."
Now, I’m pretty sure it could have been over right then, BUT my mom just had to pull out a copy of my zine and give it to him.
"Here is his publication. This is how he got people to send Mr. (Evil Head Man) stuff," she said.
He took it and looked it over and said something about how it was trash. "But trash sells, right?" Okay, sure. Then he asked stupid questions about if I would want my brother and sister to grow up in a world like that. Hmmm...I think a peaceful world where people are free wouldn’t be too bad of a place...
Then he asked why I would believe people on the internet who I don’t know rather than teachers and such. What I should have said was something like, "Because they most likely don’t work for the government," but I remained quiet.
Then we left and my parents drove me to school. On the way there, my dad spewed a bunch of bullshit about how if I published a single word I would automatically go to jail. He then said I couldn’t talk about anarchy (which he obviously didn’t understand) or drug legalization.
"This isn’t new! This is an old argument! Find another cause! Blah blah blah!"
It was retarted. He said all I could publish was shit that I didn’t give a fuck about. Then he said I couldn’t publish at all.
We went to California on vacation (did I mention I’m from San Francisco? I am.) and I gave a copy to my cousin. My aunt looked at it and we talked about it. Then I told her that I wasn’t allowed to publish anymore and about how I had to talk to a probation officer and stuff.
She told my mom she should of called the cops on the guy and told my dad I should be allowed to publish. My dad argued about how they’re really conservative out here and a bunch of crap. A couple days later, I said something about not being allowed to make my zine any more and my mom said "you can."
So now I’m gonna try and start publishing again. I know they’re gonna spazz, but oh well. The specific stuff I’m not allowed to publish is anarchy, drug legalization, and computer hacking. I’m just gonna call anarchy libertarianism, since my idea of anarchy is basically that. The other stuff I’m removing and replacing with some other crap. I know they’re gonna spazz at the stuff I’m adding now, but oh well, it’s worth it.
That’s the story as best as I can remember it. Hope you got something out of it. CENSORSHIP SUCKS!!!
Hey you!! You’re gonna email at paulo.head.man@juno.com! Then you’re gonna visit the undumb web site! http://www.tstonramp.com/~fbartune/frank/undumb/ Then, you’re gonna send 2 bucks (and some stamps if your friendly) to me, so you can have your very own copy of undumb! Exploding Eggplant, c/o Paul Saylor, 3572 W State Road 10 #7, Lake Village, IN 46349! And then you’re gonna reprint this everywhere possible, and send me a copy if you can! Or maybe you won’t. Oh well...
| oblivion@oblivion.net |    |