How to Destroy Your High School in Seven Days

Awhile back, Nick Pell from Key 64 asked me to write an article for him, on the topic of “Ten Ways YOU Can Fight Fascist America.” After I got that done—and you can read it here—Nick generously offered to return the favor.  So I’ve asked him to write something for all of Brainsturbator’s younger readers.  I asked him to lay out a plan: “How to Destroy Your High School in Seven Days.”

I didn’t know if I’d get a magick ritual or a treatise on home explosives, but Nick surprised me and came with a truly interesting angle.  His recipe is something anyone can apply—in fact, our sick culture will do most of the work for you. He’s also got the personal experience to prove that it works.  I’m very happy to offer this, and since Nick has a lot to teach, I will now get out of the way.  Enjoy.

--thirtyseven

How to Destroy Your High School in Seven Days!

High school is, along with prison, the military and VA hospitals, on the short list of the more disgustingly oppressive institutions of America. A brief glance at the architecture of learning facilities (and their resemblance to the aforementioned contemporary concentration camps) should make this abundantly clear to anyone with doubts and a brain. The people who have to occupy the structures are tertiary concerns after how to keep students inside and how to stuff as many bodies as possible into a given space. But most importantly, anyone who still thinks that this institution exists to educate the youth of America is almost laughably naive. While elite private institutions do a bang-up job of training the next ruling class public education is strictly for the masses. High school is little more than social regimentation. Learn your place, fall in line and shut up.

Thinking youth have always sought to undermine, subvert and ultimately destroy their institutions of “learning,” but materials on how to do so are scant. Brainy kids generally fall into one of two categories; those who realize the impossible odds and decide to just skip class and get high and those who make futile and failed attempts at attacking the power structure, often causing themselves more trouble than their meager sense of retribution was ultimately worth. Fortunately, I have some experience in fighting the powers that be and have, in my infinite magnanimity decided to share a few trade secrets that I picked up back in the days that dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

I suppose a recitation of my credentials are in order. The year was 1996 and I was dealing with the same kinds of problems that any kid too smart for school goes through. My freshman year was highlighted by me losing my Student Council Presidency over a scandal involving a 22 year old woman who attended my school under a fake name to be closer to me. Sophomore year’s headlines revolved around Young Master Nick getting death threats from white supremacists during school hours and getting in trouble for “provoking” them. Needless to say, by junior year I’d had about all I could take. I was little surprised when, on the third day of school I was instructed by an administrative hack to “modify” an anti-Nazi patch on my school bag- which she later clarified meant “remove it.”

The patch in question was literally nothing that anyone who wasn’t a white supremacist could take issue with. It was simply a swastika crossed out bearing the legend “R.O.A.R.” which stood for ”Racist On A Rope.” A friend of mine made it, I liked it and so I prominently affixed it to my school bag right above the Dropdead logo stencil. Naturally I refused the “request” from the fascist old lady which prompted her to call over our useless rummy principal. Think of everything stereotypically disgusting and banal about high school principals. This guy was that in spades. Big rummy nose with gin blossoms all over it, the stink of old failures and all the insecurity you can stuff inside a cheap three piece suit. He predictably circled the wagons thinking that I was an easy target. What he didn’t count on was that I had more brains than him and had been pushed to the wall too many times.

Long story short, I went home, did some research that yes, Virginia, a red circle with a line through it is a universal symbol for “no,” “stop,” or “strike.” I also spent some time researching relevant case law. This wasn’t good enough for Old Rummy who declared that he was going to “test the law” resulting in one of the finer moments of high school. My father (about 6’2” and 225lbs of militant unionized iron worker) informed my principal that “you better hope I never see you outside of this school because I might have to ‘test the law.” Two days later I got ACLU lawyers. Two days after that I alerted the local media to my plight and they were more than happy to cast the plucky, articulate teenager as a hero against a decidedly unphotogenic high school principal control freak. Not only was I allowed back in school with the patch in tow, I had also completely humiliated the principal who was, not to put too fine a point on it, completely emasculated after that. He lost his job two years later and I dare say that the patch incident certainly didn’t help.

But this isn’t just a trip down memory lane for the glory days when I would do anything to tell an authority figure to fuck themselves. It’s an instruction manual on how you, the psychedelic illuminated power weirdoes reading Brainsturbator currently incarcerated in our nation’s public schools can kick back a little.  To that end, I now provide you with a day by day guide to destroying your high school in a week.

Sunday

Sunday is a day set aside for planning, strategic and tactical. As they say in the American classic film One Crazy Summer “with no plan there’s no attack… with no attack there’s no victory!” Make sure that you know exactly what you are doing, how you’re going to do it, and what you plan to do when the hammer of the law drops down on you. Spend Sunday not only coming up with whatever irritant you plan to use to disrupt business as usual at your school, spend lots of time thinking of all the contingencies. Get together with friends who will point out blind spots in your thinking that could lead to epic failure.

Monday

Monday is the the day that the provocation gets volleys. Whatever you end up choosing make sure that you are standing on firm ground. Also make sure that it grabs a lot of attention. Framing is also very important. Simply put- has whatever provocation you’ve chosen going to make the authority figures look like total incompetents the second that they open their mouths, or is their still some room for you to totally eat shit? A point of specifics- anything you can do that will encourage AM talk radio show hosts to bemoan “political correctness run amuck in our schools!” will work greatly to your advantage. Go over these questions one last time in your mind. It is likely that you will not make it through til lunch time.

Tuesday

Tuesday is the day of research. You’ve just been thrown out of school for some totally bullshit reason. Now take your vacation time to do some serious research on the subject at hand. Does the school have legal standing to throw you out? Why or why not? These questions will make you look a lot better when you move on to Wednesday.

Wednesday

Wednesday is the day that you entrench your fight by getting together with some adults that can actually help your cause, i.e. lawyers. I know you’re thinking “Where the hell am I going to get lawyers from?” It’s actually a lot easier than you think. The ACLU is full of people who just swoon over precocious high school children willing to put their balls to the wall for civil liberties in our nations schools. Whatever you’ve pulled is probably nothing that they can’t handle, and unless the administration at your school is full of cowboys, chances are they’ll be shitting their meal once they hear you’ve called out the big guns.

Thursday

More planning. You’ll be meeting with the school administration soon to discuss the terms of your re-entry into school. So spend a half hour on the phone with your newfound friends at the ACLU (there are other groups as well- I just mention them because they’re the most obvious and the one that I used) communicating the specifics of your case. Decide what approach you’re going to use so that the school administration has egg all over its face and all you have to show for it is a few days spent out of class. Also, if you’re fortunate enough to have parents as cool as mine, spend the day with them. Try and get them to play hooky from work. Spread the love.

Friday

You won. Contact the media. They eat this kind of thing up and weekends are generally reserved for the kind of “soft” news that your ordeal entails.

Saturday

Eat. Drink. Be merry. Practice your cocky swagger. Make a t-shirt or something designed to rub the administration’s face in whatever small victory you’ve accomplished. Plan your next provocation.

The adult readers and even some of the more precocious youth may realize that the plan I have outlined above amounts to little more than childish goat getting. But remember the words of the sage American prophet of academia Ferris Bueller who told us that “It’s a little childish and stupid but then again so is high school.” When one is being arbitrarily dominated by microcosmic fascists on a daily basis, what’s the harm in kicking back a little, particularly if the form that kicking takes is pleasurable? If nothing else, you’ll be able to pen an article about it one day for the hippest website in all the land.

As It Is, So Be It.

Nick Pell
Arkham, MA

Nick Pell is the Editor in Chief of the counterculture and occult webzine Key64, Event Director of esoZone and an Editor for Immanion Press.