This week, Ken and John talk about:

Official Website, Download MP3

Junior High, Building trail (OM229)

The movie Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid To Ask) includes a scene on Chastity Belts, a thing that you only consider from the time you are in Junior High because before that you wouldn’t understand what they are about. Every Junior High child is introduced to the idea because Junior Highs are where this type of stuff gets into the culture. Some kid goes: ”Have you ever heard of a Chastity Belt?” and you feel stupid for not having heard of it, but you pretend you have.

People are so messed up because of Junior Highs, which is why John believes they should be abolished. They might be a little better now, it is no longer Lord of the Flies like when he was in Junior High, but it is the 21 Jump Street thing, and the oppressive wokeness of he culture means that kids do no longer get the crudest sexual insults told about them and the worst kind of homophobia.

Instead they get indoctrinated with anti-bullying philosophy, which represses bullying. If you put Jell-O in your hands and squeeze your hands really tight, it doesn’t compress, but comes out through the little cracks in your hand. The idea behind it is more like when Superman squeezes a coal into a diamond: If you repress bullying enough, it turns into something beautiful like kindness.

We do not educate kids in handling the transition that happens around Junior High: Their emotions fully come online, their sexuality comes online, adults are terrified to deal with that, and in this super-crucial moment of their lives where they say: ”What is sex? I want to know! Look at my body!” they just learn it from one another because adults have noped out.

Then you get kids saying: ”Did you know? You can get pregnant from a toilet seat! Have you ever heard…” Maybe Google is some kind of corrective to this because you can get on Snopes and find out that you can’t get pregnant in a swimming pool. But on the other side there is so much porn online!

They did rename Junior Highs to Middle Schools now. Either you take a 6th grader who does not belong with 8th graders and force them into this weird place. A 6th grader should be in Elementary School! Or you take a 9th grader who should be on their knees, cleaning the floor or their High School with a tooth brush like John was when he was in 9th grade, but suddenly they are the kings of Junior High? That makes no sense either! At least they get their comeuppance the next year.

Ken thinks it should not be age-based, but you should have to demonstrate certain trades of pubescence and that is how you advance. The problem is that John couldn’t grow a mustache until he was 19 and he would still be in Junior High today.

Those kids should be sequestered and they should go built trail for the National Park System for two years (see RL48), which is a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) idea. Out in the woods they are out of polite society, they are all going to be wearing scratchy wool, and there is not going to be the fashion problems that we have where kids feel out of step because Junior High is also where you pick up shame and status-consciousness.

Instead the kids would be working their young bodies by building trails in the National Parks so they would be strong. John sounds like some 1910s Scout Master. ”Of course they would have no impure thoughts! They will be working their bodies!” There will be an acoustic guitar at night around the campfire and then lights out at 9pm.

John picking up his lady friend in High School while her dad was playing with a shotgun (OM229)

There are photographs of dads posing with their teenage daughters where the dad is strapped with some machine gun, but they don’t have any caption, it is just implied what it means, and it is taken like a family portrait that you would have over the mantel, except dad has a machine gun. Ken is not from that part of the country, so this is all orientalism for him. John is not afflicted by this, he just hopes his daughter lives a long and happy life. Ken also does not have any of this red-hot fury that he cannot control at the mere idea that somebody would date his daughter.

One time in High School John went to pick up his friend Mary to take her to a Cotillion dance (She is now Dr. Mary). Her dad was John’s dad's cardiologist and he was a legendary figure in their neighborhood full of legendary figures, like John’s next-door neighbor kept a pair of float plane floats in his yard all winter. John and Mary were just good friends, he didn’t have any designs on her, but as he showed up at the house her dad greeted him at the front door, carrying a highball glass filled to overflowing with brown liquor.

He walked John upstairs, asked him to sit down on the couch while he sat in his chair and went back to work on the shotgun that he was cleaning / dismantling while talking to John about his plans for the night. He was steaming drunk, working on his gun while John sat with his corsage on his lap in his living room. That was a little bit Alaska and a little bit mid-1980s, but John actually had the experience of dad-with-gun saying: ”So what are your plans for tonight?” He was a cardiologist and you would expect a little better.

Ken growing up in Korea (OM229)

When Ken lived in Korea they lived less than a mile from an Army base on a hill that stretched up above the big junky shopping street where you could buy knock-off handbags and Old Navy and Banana Republic clothes, some stuff that was made there and fell of a truck, factory seconds, or just counterfeit stuff. That hill would rise up to where some of the nice hotels were, like the Hyatt and so forth.

Ken’s family had an apartment there for 5 years or so. It was not in Gangnam, that is the nice part of town where the actually wealthy Koreans shop. Where Ken lived was just where the dumb GIs went and no Korean would ever want to go. It must have some name in Soul geography, but everyone called it Hooker Hill and that was where the unaccompanied kids would go on a Friday night.

Other (OM229)

The last thing you want to find out about your locksmith is that they are a coke addict because they have the power of locks.

Burning Man would be so much more interesting if it were just a giant Hippie stick fight where they are all in a big circle and then go to town.

John is only wearing pants 1 in 4 times that Ken is at the bunker.