I was on the radio last weekend. I have very little that I want to say about the appearance or the trial. I expected to feel a lot of things surrounding the verdict. I did not expect exasperation/exhaustion with my ostensible community to be one of them. Some (NOT ALL, calm down) autistic people really do think that I’m an object from which they can demand perfect takes completely in line with their beliefs and how they would frame them 24/7. And some feel free to treat me like a lightning rod for all of their anger and anxiety when I can’t live up to the standards they’ve arbitrarily set for me. Usually based on assumptions they’ve made about me that have almost nothing to do with my reality. 

I’m not unsympathetic to the panic that people are feeling around this issue. I feel it, too. But even if I were able to pull off a perfect media appearance that successfully addresses every single autistic person’s concerns exactly the way that they would say it, it wouldn’t be enough to fix everything that’s troubling us. But people keep demanding perfection, and autistic individuals who are asked to comment on serious issues keep failing to meet those standards, because they’re impossible, and then deciding they’d rather not try at all. Which is what I spent the rest of the week doing. 

But if you’re going to have some weird combination of existential crisis and meltdown over a population that wants people to understand that they’re human beings repeatedly failing to treat one of their own like a human being in the name of the cause, there are worse times to do it than the week that your precious art film streaming service adds a beloved relic from your youth. 

Movie of the Week: Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979)

I can’t remember how many times I watched this movie as a teenager, or exactly how long it’s been since I last saw it. Let’s just go with a lot, and too long. What I can tell you is that I’ve already watched it twice this week, and that there’s no way in hell I can go years, let alone decades, without seeing it again. 

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t love a lot of high school movies. I missed out on most of the milestones that make them relatable to normal people, which made me feel even more isolated as a teen and just leaves me feeling kind of indifferent and bored now. But Rock’n’Roll High School is broadly wacky in a way that appeals to people who wouldn’t otherwise be interested in the tropes it loosely plays with. Like, you know, Ramones fans. 

So yes, it has the typical rebel kids vs authoritarian principal/dean thing going on, but it’s taken to such a ridiculous extreme that they actually blow up the school. The nerdy girl, whose inevitable makeover involves little more than throwing a cape on her and letting her still be herself, is instrumental in blowing that fucker up. Also, The Ramones are there, because why not. They walk around with their instruments as if they’re extensions of their bodies, and randomly break into performances. At one point, Joey sings into a partially eaten piece of chicken.

There’s also a gymnastics-filled dance party in the middle of gym class.

An art teacher earnestly delivers the line “Hey, guys, you know, people say that your music is loud and destructive and lethal to mice; but, I think you're the Beethovens of our time!”

It’s fantastic. My heart is so full. 

(I should point out that while Rock’n’Roll High School is less awful than most 70s and 80s teen films, it is by no means an unproblematic fave. There’s a joke about scalpers that is particularly egregious. And while I have my own nuanced feelings about the Ramones’ use of mental health and disability in their songs — influenced by my own experiences with the topic, as well as some of the band members’ — your mileage may vary.)

I have no idea how I managed to miss out on repeat viewings of a movie that was so close to my heart in my misfit teens. It’s not like I grew out any of the impulses or musical tastes that made it appeal so much to me at the time. It speaks to me just as much at 39 as it did at 13, if not more. But the massive gap in RnRHS viewings turned the film into an unintentional time capsule of sorts, and I appreciate the insight that’s given me. Even if most of said insight is of the “oh… so I really have been this way forever” variety. My taste for goofy comedy with a surrealistic edge dates back to puberty! So do my rebellious fantasies of breaking into dance parties and blowing things up. Not to mention my bottomless soft spot for floppy-haired misfits.

The most interesting revelation to me, though, was a small scene in which Ramones superfan and leader of the rebellion, Riff Randell, is arguing in favour of skipping class to buy tickets to their upcoming concert. “Ten years from now, no one will care if you’ve ever been to high school, much less skipped a few classes!” she declares. I believe she’s supposed to be seen as a loveable bad influence here. It’s how I read the scene originally. But looking back at it now, I’m amazed at just how accurate it is. 

I’m grateful to have had a mother who agreed, too, because she took me to see the Ramones on a school night when I was in grade eight and let me skip morning classes to sleep in the next day. She didn’t even bother coming up with an excuse. Just sent me waltzing into my afternoon classes wearing my brand new Ramones shirt and a shit-eating grin. What could I possibly have missed in those couple of hours that would have mattered compared to that memory?

And sure, you could argue that those are the kind of choices and philosophies that led me to be a poor, burnt out high school grad and failed writer with very few prospects. But think of it this way: plenty of my cohorts are also burnt out, poor, and lacking in future prospects. And they never saw The Ramones. 

Song of the Week: “Do You Remember Rock’n’Roll Radio?” - The Ramones

There are so, so many songs that I could mention here now I’m diving back into this band, remembering how much they meant to me, and realizing how great they still sound to me. But no track seems more appropriate than the one with the line that most perfectly captures your younger self’s deep ties to music, and the yearning for that feeling now, than “Do You Remember Rock’n’Roll Radio?” 

Sure, the predictions about the death of rock were just as premature and overwrought in 1980 as they have been for every generation since. But my chest aches a little bit every time Joey sings “Do you remember lying in bed/ With your covers pulled up over your head?/ Radio playin' so one can see?” 

Because I do.