Jailhouse Rock: Junior Prom, Part 4

My ad agency worked with an interesting client a few years ago. They were in the hazardous waste industry and manufactured a handheld raman laser spectrometer. 

Don't worry. I don't for a minute expect you to understand what that is (my creative team and I certainly didn't until we were charged with marketing it). But, essentially, you can point it at an unknown substance and within minutes, know the chemical makeup of it. So, for example, you would know whether what looked like a harmless bottle of spring water was really filled with some other clear liquid. Bug poison, for example. 

Or vodka.

If I didn't know how severely underfunded my daughter's public high school is, I would suggest that they buy one. It might make all our lives easier.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Time flies. The snow has finally melted (except in the parking lots at the local grocery store and YMCA, where they had plowed it into mountains, which have yet to disappear). Three of the four quarters of my daughter's junior year are behind us. Successfully, thank goodness. And ...

We are only a couple of weeks from prom.

OMG.

The tough parts are behind us. Finding the right dress, waiting for a "promposal" (spectacular, btw, watch for details in a post to come). The next step on the road to junior prom is the paperwork.

And there's a significant amount of it.

This afternoon, my daughter brought home a very serious-looking document. On official school letterhead (and for some reason, printed on blue paper, maybe to prevent its being lost in the abyss known as the backpack), is our "Permission Slip to Attend Junior Prom."

If you think I'm exaggerating as to the serious nature of this communique, let me excerpt it for you here:

Policies, Procedures, and expectations for all students and their Guests:
• All students who are attending the junior prom are expected to be in school the day of the prom
• All students and guests should be at the high school by 5:30 pm
• Please do your best to carpool to the high school, the parking lot will be crowded
• All students and guests must check in at the school and ride the bus to and from the prom
• Be prepared to have purses and pockets searched (no backpacks allowed)
• Be prepared to be subject to random breathalyzer
• No guests allowed who are 21 or older
• Any guest who is 18 or older and not enrolled in high school must be CORI checked 
• All students and their guests must board the bus when directed to do so, to return to the high school 

All students and their guests are expected to behave in a manner that shows respect for themselves and others. Students who violate this policy will be asked to leave the prom. The student's legal guardian(s) will be called and must come pick up the student and guest immediately. All school rules and consequences apply. Smoking and tobacco are NOT allowed.

There's then a place for my daughter to print and sign her name. Then, there's a separate special message for her father and me:

To the Legal Guardian:
I understand that my son/daughter is attending the Junior Prom. Should he/she engage in behavior that is not in accordance with the rules and regulations, I will be called and expected to pick up my son/daughter immediately. If I am unable to be reached, my child will be placed in protective custody with the police until I can be contacted. If there is a medical emergency, a chaperone will accompany my son/daughter to the nearest hospital.

And at this point, we sign and provide a phone number where we can be reached during the event itself. There's a final asterisked warning to all of us:

* A prom ticket cannot be purchased until this form has been returned

Okay. Now, I do understand that prom nights have historically been notorious for underage drinking. Friends of mine (who didn't grow up in midtown New York) have told me about classmates who had serious accidents, in some cases died, driving home from a less rigorously supervised prom. I really do want my daughter and her peers to be safe.

But, I can't help feeling that this is taking things a little too far. "Subject to a random breathalyzer?" Really?

It worries me no end that my daughter and her classmates are treated as though they're already guilty and must constantly prove their innocence. Take it from a native New Yorker, this is a fairly sleepy little town. I don't think there is much going down in the way of truly dangerous delinquent behavior. The bulk of the student body is too busy playing field hockey, rounding out their college resumes with community service and studying for their SATs. As far as drugs are concerned, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the students are on anti-anxiety meds, but not much else.

Then again, I guess I should be grateful. Really. I mean most kids in juvie probably don't get to have a junior prom.

If you enjoyed this post, I invite you to order a copy of Lovin' the Alien at www.lovinthealien.com.  


 

Why Is This Boy Smiling?

A lucky paparazzo once earned $250,000 for a shot of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on vacation in Namibia. (Interestingly, "Brangelina" had already turned the tables on the celebrity photo business back in 2006 when they sold their own photos of their newborn to People for $4.1 million.) Stalking and shooting and selling famous people is big business.

But, I have a feeling that whoever took today's hottest picture of a star didn't make quite that much. Google "Bieber mug shot" and you'll come up with 9.2 million hits. 

"Say cheese."

My teenage daughter was never a big fan (a "Bieber Fever Belieber Believer" or whatever Justin's groupies are called). Sure, we watched the tribute Glee episode together, but otherwise, she could take him or leave him. So it isn't as though we're emotionally vested in the young man's health and well-being. Still, every time these stories pop up in my Facebook feed, I get a little more disgusted.

Let's take a quick look at some of Bieber's accomplishments, shall we?

Bieber is the youngest recording artist ever to have five number one albums.

His "Baby" made history as the top-selling digital single, receiving Diamond status by the Recording Industry Association of America after going platinum twelve times.

Never Say Never, Bieber's concert documentary earned more than $99 million in worldwide box office.

Whether you like his particular brand of pouty pop or not, the boy has proven himself from a sales perspective. He's a big thing with lots of fans (63,695,453 on Facebook alone). And, based on his most recent ... er ... accomplishments, he truly does "believe" in all his own hype. For example, and this is all within the last month:

Bieber is under investigation for "egging" his neighbor's house, causing $20,000 in damages (all right, how big were these eggs?). 

When the police arrived to search his house, they found drugs. They originally said it was cocaine, but it appears that it was only a form of ecstasy known as "Molly." (Phew, what a relief.)

He recently texted full-frontal pictures of his penis to on-again/off-again girlfriend Selena Gomez with such endearing comments as: "Cum on, don't tell me you don't miss this," and later, "Can't hear you cuz of all my cash, babe! You’re only famous cuz of me … Go f*ck someone else. Keep that talentless p*ssy away from me!” 

And he wonders why she's off-again?

Earlier this week, he visited a number of strip clubs in Miami to distribute 75,000 $1 bills. And this morning, he was arrested.

My, my they do add up. Today's stunts comprise their own list. Let's see, illegally drag racing. Driving under the influence. Resisting arrest. "What the f*ck are you doing?" he demanded, prior to being cuffed. Apparently, he has decided that he is above the law.

So what's next for young Justin? A new haircut maybe? Another number one album? Or a continued spiral down? Things don't look good. In fact, he makes Miley Cyrus look positively Disney, doesn't he? As a mom, I hope he can get his act back together. But, I have my doubts. 

Maybe I'll just wait for the E! True Hollywood Story. At the rate he's going, it should be out by ... oh ... next week.

Go Ask Alice — If You Can Find Her

Recently, I was in a used bookstore looking for a copy of The Great Gatsby for my teenage daughter's honors English class, preferably one without Leonardo DiCaprio's head on it. (No luck, by the way.) I passed a table marked "Summer Reading Lists" and there I saw a very familiar paperback book.

Go Ask Alice, the real diary of a teen drug user! O!M!G! My girlfriends and I devoured that book back in high school. We read it over and over and over. We hung on every word. Through the anonymous "Alice," we experienced a subculture of illicit activities that none of us were brave enough (or stupid enough) to try in real life.

I'm always looking for books to share with my daughter and this seemed like one she needed to know about. Of course, I would read it first — just to make sure I was ready for any questions she might have. Or so I told myself. In reality, I couldn't wait to sink my teeth back into it. And, it was only $1.99! (How much do we love used bookstores? That would be a lot.) Within moments, it was mine.

As an aside, I also bought a used copy ($2.39!) of Carrie Fisher's sequel to Postcards from the Edge, her semiautobiographical novel The Best Awful. If there was a theme to my little shopping spree, I guess it was Drug Abuse Lit 101. But, I digress.

That afternoon, I happily finished the book on my nightstand (Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers, Part II, which didn't have any teen junkies in it, but did have quite a bit of snuff pinching). I settled in for an acid trip down memory lane, convinced I would finish Go Ask Alice in a single sitting. 

Mais non, mes amis! It was tough to get through it. Because despite my earlier infatuation, the truth is ... Go Ask Alice is awful.

I don't mean that it's awfully sad or awfully depressing or awfully tragic (all of which I would have confidently asserted when I was my daughter's age). I mean, the book is simply awful. How I (and apparently five million other readers) ever thought this was an actual diary from an actual teenager is beyond me. Of course, the book cover tells us so:

"The harrowing true story of a teenager's descent into the seductive world of drugs. A diary so honest you may think you know Alice — or someone like her. Read her diary. Enter her world. You'll never be able to forget Alice."

If nothing else, I can vouch for that last bit. Anyway, upon a shall-we-say more mature reading, Go Ask Alice doesn't ring true. Not at all.

Yes, as promised, "Alice" shares her deepest darkest secrets. (Isn't that part of the thrill of reading someone's diary?) Some of the issues are drawn from actual teen life: she worries about her weight, she obsesses about a boy, she wishes she could be more popular. But, there's simply no way a fifteen-year-old wrote this:

I just bought the most wonderful little single pearl pin for Mother's Christmas present. It cost me nine dollars and fifty cents, but it's worth it. It's a cultured pearl which means it's real and it looks like my Mom. Soft and shiny, but sturdy and dependable underneath so it won't dribble all over the place. Oh I hope she likes it! I want so very much for her to like it and to like me!

Say, what?

The writing gets even more flowery (and less plausible) when "Alice" describes her first LSD trip:

I looked at a magazine on the table, and I could see it in 100 dimensions. It was so beautiful I could not stand the sight of it and closed my eyes. Immediately I was floating into another sphere, another world, another state. Things rushed away from me and at me, taking my breath away like a drop in a fast elevator. I couldn't tell what was real and what was unreal. Was I the table or the book or the music, or was I part of all of them, but it didn't really matter, for whatever I was, I was wonderful.

Oh my.

Well, suffice it to say, I was a little more gullible thirty-five years ago. Or, maybe I just assumed that a real, published book that claimed to be a real diary of a real girl who died of a real overdose was ... well ... real.

Kind of the way kids feel about what they find on the Internet today. Speaking of which, it took about twenty seconds to learn that Go Ask Alice was — indeed — a work of fiction. (Gasp!) The author was a woman named Beatrice Sparks who ghost-wrote a number of similar titles: 

Annie's Baby: The Diary of Anonymous, A Pregnant Teenager

Treacherous Love: The Diary of an Anonymous Teenager

Almost Lost: The True Story of an Anonymous Teenager's Life on the Streets

Kim: Empty Inside: The Diary of ... you guessed it ... an Anonymous Teenager
  
Ms. Sparks, who passed away last year, was a therapist and a Mormon youth counselor. And, a very successful, if maybe not so credible anymore, anonymous teenager.

So, this has been an enlightening week. I'm glad that "Alice" was just a fictional girl (she doesn't have a very happy ending in the book, if you remember). Real or not, Go Ask Alice provided my younger self with hours of reading pleasure. I don't think it convinced me not to try hard drugs; I doubt I would have with or without the book (I was rather a goody-goody). But, maybe it did persuade some kids to stay safe. 'Can't really argue with that 

And, I'm still going to share it with my daughter. But, I think I'll wait until she finishes The Great Gatsby.