I was fifteen, I'd just moved to a new school where I didn't know anybody.  I was told to shadow this dude named Fig, who was a chubby, sarcastic looking sort in glasses with spiky hair.  He was cool and we hit it off, based upon a mutual appreciation for Arby's and showing off.

About a week into this relationship, at a school Town Hall meeting, they announced that the guy elected to be Discipline Chair had resigned upon learning that there was work involved.  Since that guy had run unopposed, it was generally assumed that anyone who wanted the job could probably just ask for it.  Across the room, I see Fig stand and announce he wanted to do it.  I stood.  His eyes met mine, piercing green locked against the color of backlit root beer.  I announced that he could have that chairmanship over my dead body.

Over the next few weeks, we shot several "smear" ads against one another, and several "I approved this message" type hype videos.  We filmed a debate cohabitating the same bathtub.  I mooned the camera many times.

The final hype video prior to the election was shown, as the others were, before the entire school.  As the credits rolled, so did the footage of my bare ass.

The reception to these projects was tremendous.  The reception to my ass was lukewarm at best.  As such, I decided to stop trying to use my ass to get places in life, and instead use Fig.

And that's the story of how I became Teague's Jason Mewes.

I'm pretty sure the revolution was televised. I think I've got it on DVD somewhere.

In all seriousness, when I was in college in 1989, my roommates asked me, "Why do you watch the evening news on one channel and then switch to another network and watch THAT evening news?" And I said, "Because THEY'RE TEARING DOWN THE BERLIN WALL, YOU IDIOTS. THE WHOLE FUCKING EASTERN BLOC IS CRUMBLING."

It was goddamned exciting if you were paying attention.

I was 10, it was a Tuesday. I was home sick from school. I was set up on the couch in the living room, I had a bowl of cereal and was surrounded by blankets. I was watching some cartoon, and suddenly the channel switched over to a news report, about some building. I remember switching through the channels trying to find something else...but the exact same image was on every channel. Over the next few hours I watched it all unfold. I don't remember it vividly, but I remember certain elements of it.

I remember the first tower falling. I remember the screams. I remember the look on the news anchors face. I remember the disbelief. After that it's all a bit of a smear.

And then life went on. I went to school the next day, and there was something different in the air, but I'm pretty sure I'm only realizing it looking back on it. And then I spent the entirety of my teen years growing up with the Bush administration.

Of course at the time I couldn't truly understand what was happening, it was just the thing stopping me from watching cartoons. Only as I grew up did I really understand what was watching that day. It's funny how that works.

You know, I can't even remember a time when the US wasn't in the middle east. It's always just been a fact of life for me. It's scary.