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WR 220 Dysfunctional Discourse I never realized how much variation there was between the discourse communities I’ve belonged to until I stopped to examine just one of them. There are some groups that I no longer belong to and I’m happy to say that the ‘me’ who was involved with them is gone as well. One crowd, or community, I associated with was probably more harmful than others. The group that fits this bill is one I ran around with during and after high school; we were skateboarders. Within this motley crew of miscreants was our own unique and often offensive style of discourse. Adolescence involves a discourse type of its own. In psychology there is a term used essentially to define why teenagers do the dumb things they do while in plain sight of the rest of us. They feel they have an imaginary audience, which refers to the delusion that they are the constant focus of everyone else’s attention. What the teen sees is a stage where he stands as the main event ready to amuse the rest of us. What the civilized world sees, however, is a kid who has a serious lack of pride, conscientiousness, and any other worthy virtue for that matter. For example, the other day my wife and I were parked outside Domino’s when this gaggle of teenage bandits came lumbering toward our car. One of them was wearing a mask and was bouncing around shouting some nonsensical jiberish for no apparent reason. As they drew near I felt the urge to fend them off, but like hornets, rats, and other pests if you pay them no mind, they’ll typically scamper on by. Ironically, I used to be one of these people. My old band of half-brothers was constantly buying for publicity, often at the expense of other people’s comfort. We were we loud, crude, obnoxious, scoundrels who had mastered the art of disturbing the peace. We were even at odds with each other, always trying to see who could pull off the next outrageous civil infraction. I remember being eternally banished from a local Denny’s because one of my pals plucked a few of his own pubes and strategically placed them on the rim of his coffee mug. It wasn’t the flabbergasted look on our waitress’s face that caused the eruption of laughter; nope, it was the stone-cold statement of fury written on my buddies face when he voiced his complaint about someone’s man-hairs corrupting his mug.
Being cast out of one place simply meant moving our production somewhere else. Day after day the show went on, despite the obvious displeasure of innocent bystanders. We were trying to show people, whether they were interested or not, what nonconformists looked like. The police were often our escorts away from other people when tolerance had worn too thin. Yes, like the buffoons who came dangerously close to my Carolla the other night, I too was once on stage. Our act was called, We’ll Piss In the Street and Punch You In Your Contorted Faces, Unless the Cops the Cops Show Up… At That Point We’ll Run for Our Lives and Find Some Private Place to Spray-Paint. The message we wanted to send to the rest of the world was simple; we aren’t like you. Showing up at school meant continuing the endless campaign to be different. A way to communicate our distinction without saying a word was through what we wore. Our style of dress set us apart; to some it was a warning, to others it was a beacon on the harbor, and to a few it was an invitation to a dust up. In high school everything is taken at face value. My group upheld this truth as much as any other. Sure, maybe we dressed differently, but we were just as concerned about fitting into our style as other groups were to theirs. We wore baggy pants, graphic or band tee-shirts, skate shoes and other accessories. It worked. We were in a league of our own, but there were particular trends and brands that were a must for my crowd just like there were in any other clique you can imagine. Maybe we appeared different but fitting in was just as important to me as it was to any other teenager. I guess then, we really weren’t a whole lot different from other kids. In fact, at any of the other dozens of high schools around you’d find other groups exactly like ours. For me, my clothing simply said “hey, I’m with them.”
To accompany our apparel as a means of divergence, we adopted an attitude of strict intolerance for other groups. No one who was different than us escaped our ridicule. We would perch like buzzards at our spot near the cafeteria and watch the masses with eyes full of scrutiny. A hapless cowboy shuffled by as the tune from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly sounded from a chorus of whistlers who were also shouting phrases like “shoot pard, you ave eny chaw on yeh?” Yep, it was open season. But what do you think we did when we were by ourselves? We targeted each other. Our average conversations were stuffed to the rafters with sarcastic and biting tones. Someone was always the butt of a joke or the focus of poisonous laughter. High school was tank full of bloody water where sometimes you were a shark but most of the time, you were the wounded flounder. In consequence of our poor attitudes, there were clashes. Fights were unavoidable and even necessary at times. As senseless as fighting may seem, it was a powerful way to send a message. We were by no means the toughest guys at school but we darn well could have been the dumbest for it rarely behooved us to back down from a fight. I myself took a healthy beat down from three Hispanic guys because I wouldn’t let one of them get away with nudging me as he walked past (shortly after this experience, I became friends with two of these guys). I had to let them know that I wasn’t a push over. It’s a deranged bunch who goes looking for trouble but that was us. This was our underlying purpose for getting up in the morning. One activity we really enjoyed, besides skateboarding, was shooting pool. This was always a good time killer but it came at a price that was sometimes too high to pay. The nearest pool hall was a den of cow-folk so playing pool meant enduring nauseating music and sharing smoke filled air with baser creatures. For one of my friends this was too hard an arrangement to abide. One night we were piling into the back of my buddies truck, after a couple hours of pool, when Nolan hopped out and headed back into the hall. We figured he forgot something and we were right, he left without insulting anybody. Nolan walked right up to a group of rednecks and asked, “Have any of you ever entered into a ‘Howdy Doody’ look-alike contest, reused a paper plate, or recited lines from the ‘Dukes of Hazard’?” Seconds later he came ripping out the front door while screaming at us “Go! Start the truck! Go!” Hot in pursuit were four large hillbillies who we didn’t stand a chance against. Nolan dove into the truck and we managed to pull safely away without the loss of blood. Typically situations ended a lot more violently than this but all and all, it was just business as usual. Antagonistic behavior like this and other frequent bids for violence spread our message so well. Most fights ultimately boil down to a couple purposes, protecting or establishing a reputation. A reputation is delicate thing; it will speak for you and communicate who you are before you even open your mouth. A name attached to a known reputation can inspire many things in people. There was a veritable cornucopia of reputations among my crowd. Some guys were notorious chick magnets/man whores. Others were known connivers and swindlers. A few of us were reputed nice guys and intellectuals but fewer still were those whose reputations were synonymous with insanity. One such nutcase was a guy named TJ who was also an excellent skate/wake boarder. Any time he walked up to the group or came into a room a thought would pop into my mind, almost as a reflex, which was basically:”I wonder what kind of mess is swimming in his head now?” How TJ’s maniacal legacy began I can only imagine, but I was there to witness the full throws of its climax. One example of his lunacy, out of many, involved his relationship with animals, more specifically, very exotic animals. There was a small privately owned zoo in the desert outside Phoenix. On the news one day was the reported theft of a large monitor lizard from this small zoo. I thought nothing of it. Later that day I stopped by TJ’s house where he was anxiously waiting for me outside.”Dude, you have to see something” he said, which are words that mean more coming from him than any other person alive! I followed him into his house but we stopped at his closed bedroom door. He bent down to pick up a tightly bound roll of newspaper and casually said, “Check this out.” He opened his door just wide enough for him to stick his arm through and aim at something inside. He launched the rolled paper into the room and a heartbeat later, all hell broke loose. He slammed the door shut so I couldn’t see what he tagged but the intensity of the commotion that followed drew images of some nightmare from Jurassic Park, penned up and thrashing about as if endowed with the destructive capacity of a thousand chainsaws. It hissed a sound that would have made Jack Hannah piss himself. After a few minutes I ventured to take a peek at TJs captive monster and sure enough, it was the six foot monitor missing from that poor little zoo out in the desert. Our discourse was ripe with symbols, nick names, code words and customs. Most of these also served to set us apart from other people. However, this tendency was nothing unique to our group; many crowds had their own lingo and quirks. I wonder why? A lot of what we did and said, in the way of symbolic communication, was ripped off from movies, music or even other groups. Do you remember a movie called Kids? It was about these skater bums in New York City and my group thought it was the best flick ever. I personally thought it was retarded but none the less adopted some behavior from it as did the rest of my friends. In the movie, when the skaters would greet each other they’d do so with a combination of handshakes and weird side hugs. Soon the same types of greetings became the norm for us. Just about each of us had a handle we went by. There was Ogre, Hammer, Milla the Fallopian Thrilla, Muili, Benner, the Dirty Frenchman, Schneidrock and many more. The nickname I’ve gone by since I was a young snapper, and carry to this day, is Cob. We also had nicknames or titles for other people outside our group. The Vice Principal of our school was a rather rotund confirmed lesbian named Pam whom we simply dubbed Sam. The janitor guy you see everywhere at school was a tiny Mexican fellow we named Pi-Witos. An Arabian guy we could always count on to eject us from one of our favorite skate spots was bestowed the title The Egyptian Magician. All cops were dubbed “Johnny”, skater chicks were called “betties”, and stoners were labeled “hessians”. The list goes on and on for no good reason. Our clan was known by skaters in other areas as The Gilbert Crew (Gilbert was a Phoenix suburb). But within our group was a more select and secretive subgroup of taggers. To this handful of elite vandals, symbols and code words were an art form. The banner we operated under was YPN or Your Property Next. Each one of the YPN boys had his own tag that he would spray in connection to the YPN standard. Usually we operated alone but made sure we informed each other of our exploits. I remember arriving at school one morning and seeing a gigantic piece that someone from YPN had sprayed high on a wall above the art room patio. It was impressive. I suppose this was the purpose of tagging, to impress each other. The irony about tagging is the fact that you throw your mark all over town for everyone to see but nobody actually knows it’s your mark. Only the boys in your crew could recognize who the artist was and give him the props he earned. There were other physical symbols that represented us and our interests. A skate shop at the mall stood as our headquarters and a record store at another mall was our backup HQ (in case there weren’t any girls at HQ alpha). These places defined us and served as a haven from the troubles lurking on the streets. However, the most significant marker of my crowd was a miraculous machine that to this day still visits my dreams; a full size 1984 Chevy Beauville Van which was placed in my care by my good parents. It was known throughout the land as The Command Unit. This glorious specimen of American engineering was blue and white with a sliding side door and limo tinted windows all around. All of the interior benches were removed, except for the furthest one back. The benches were replaced by a plaid 70s style love seat that was situated parallel to the inside wall of the van. The headliner, running the entire length of the van, was torn out and replaced with a collage of graffiti. The front grill was shattered and the bumper sat cockeyed from too much contact with garbage cans, shrubbery, construction cones, shopping carts and a myriad of other objects. She performed beautifully in both getaways and pursuits. On several occasions we were able to get all four of her wheel off the ground. I loved that van and so did everyone I ran around with. She was a symbol of freedom and adventure to those who were fortunate enough to experience her unsurpassed beauty and power. To outsiders, who could only gaze at her in envy from afar, she was a firm personification of rebellion. One day at school, just before lunch, we noticed that the parking lots were on lockdown. This wouldn’t do. As soon as lunch bell struck, the Command Unit led the charge across the school landscaping to other pastures where Taco Bell shined its 69 cent taco goodness. We had so many good times in that van; we often felt like the A Team but were more likely the C- Team. At the time this happened, Brandon was a staunch defender of a principle he believed in which almost made the fray worthwhile. What ruined it and made the danger he put us in absolutely preposterous were all the times after this experience I heard him say the word nigger. Again, we said so much in our group, but did any of it mean anything? I made so many good memories with these guys but underneath those memories is a mountain of mistakes I made with them as well. It is interesting to see bits and pieces of them on myspace and the like where I realize that a few have grown up, some are still engaged in the same style of discourse I left behind, and then some are dead. It’s hard to look back and identify if anything we said in our many ways of communicating was worthwhile. That’s beside the point; what I wanted to show was that, pointless or not, we had our own style of discourse.
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How TJ got the giant lizard and what he eventually did with it are two more sagas that also illustrate his insanity but the point of that story was to highlight the essence behind a reputation and show why they are such powerful communicators for people. He was known far and wide by most people as a person to be weary of. I find it interesting how hard I worked on my own reputation back then, how all of us in my group toiled over who or what we wanted to be seen as and now I’m happy to have left that rep. in the Arizona dust. 
When viewed objectively, I see the discourse of my old crew as a whirl of contradictions. I wonder if we ever meant anything we said. There was a phase when we all drew large black Xs on our hands to signify our adamant stance against drugs. However, all it took was for one of us to cave before we all slid into the lost world of narcotics. Even some of our clothing sent mixed messages; we had shirts that stated “Skateboarders Suck” or “I Love Cops”. We would hold onto a particular belief so strongly then abandon it without a second thought. For example, we were all strongly against racism in practice. However, in reality our convictions weren’t as solid as they appeared. For example, there was a time when we picked up two random guys who said they knew where a party was at. On the drive there one of my buddies, who was talking to our new passengers, mentioned in the conversation that he was a SHARP (anti racism group). When we arrived at the apartment complex, where the supposed party was, one of our new friends quickly bailed out and disappeared into an upstairs apartment. Seconds later, skinhead after skinhead began filing out of the apartment. One of them called out, “which one of you’s the SHARP?” as he revealed menacing knuckle knife. They all looked the same with their wife beaters, shorn heads and thin red suspenders. They far outnumbered us and knives meant more than our egos were willing to hang on to. Brett, whose truck we all rode in, had scarcely gotten out the words “let’s go, now!” when Brandon, piped up and said boldly, “Right here man, Ima SHARP!” I hated skin heads more than any one, they were dangerous, and this is one time in my life I can look back on and say I was truly terrified. Brandon, however, clumsily unfolded his Leatherman utility tool to expose the three inch retractable blade. The tension escalated to a much higher degree. Brett wasn’t waiting to see what happened next, plus we had girls with us, so he fired up his old truck and yelled for everyone to get in. We all jumped in including Brandon but so did some of the skinheads. The fight was quick and the skins bailed out but not before Brandon sunk his blade into the shoulder of one of our assailants. 
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