The Sportos, The Motorheads, Geeks, Sluts, Bloods, Wastoids, Dweebies, Dickheads – They All Adore Him

Megan and I lay in bed Monday night watching Ferris Bueller for the thousandth time. It was the 25th anniversary….but really, any reason to watch that movie.
I could type on and on for hours about that movie and how its influenced my life and is the only movie I could never get tired of.
People always quote “life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it” but that has never been the line from that movie that inspires me.

There has always been one other that really made sense to me and is really what drives me to do what I’m doing at the moment, dont get me wrong, this isn’t me writing about how you should check out what I’m doing with all the podcast network stuff I’m constantly talking/typing about, its about me trying to explain why I’m doing what I’m doing. Maybe, just maybe, I’m writing this to explain to myself why I’m doing all this podcast network stuff.

Anyway, we were watching Ferris Bueller on Monday night and it got to the line.
“the question isn’t what are we going to do, the question is what aren’t we going to do”
While probably a throw-away line to most people, it just really sunk in for the thousandth time.
Probably always thinking too much when I watch Ferris Bueller, maybe I could really do this and keep it up and not get filled with self-doubt and fear like I have with nearly everything I have done creatively, fear that what I’m doing isn’t good enough, and self-doubt where I feel like I can’t get the ideas out of my head like I wish I could and most of all, being afraid to try something and really put some effort behind it and fail. As most things I will write in this blog, it’s all been said and felt before and what I’m saying is nothing new. But again, if you’re still reading, I think I’m trying to explain this to myself.

I remember the first time I watched Ferris Bueller. It was 1997 and I was ten years old. I sat on a couch upstairs at a house in Tecoma with my oldest friends Amy & Bec. Their parents, my second parents, had hired a movie from 1986 for us kids to watch, while they cooked or watched whatever they wanted to watch…or, more likely, in an effort to get us all to shut the fuck up they put a movie on for us.
I remember for the next 98 minutes being completely glued to the screen, I had no idea of this movie before this very moment and in such a small moment, what now seems like such a long time ago, my life was changed, just a little bit. Enough for this movie to be watched by the three of us, over and over and over again. Something which has been happening to me for the last fourteen, almost fifteen years. It’s easily the movie gets played more than anything else in my collection.

If you’re reading this you’re probably saying “what an idiot, how can a movie influence your life so much”.
People are inspired by all kinds of different things, why should an 80′s movie with Jeffrey Jones not be one of the many things that inspires me.

In high school, I was lucky enough to have some really amazing and inspiring teachers, not that I thought it at the time. But I am glad I can look back on school now and realise that even though I never wanted to be there, I learnt a lot from some of these teachers, not what they were teaching, but the people they were, the life lessons, not the bullshit in the books that you will never need. Some of the teachers I had in high school were genuinely interesting, inspiring people. People who were born to teach and people who I think we need more of in our schools, people who actually inspire and people who can share wisdom with their students. Not a boring teacher, talking with absolutely zero passion about something that no one even gives a shit about. I’m lucky enough that my father is one of these inspiring teachers and I have got to spend almost 25 years with him.
Anyway, I keep getting sidetracked, high school. I had a teacher by the name of Tony Grayden.
Everyone who went to Heathmont knows who this gentleman is and anyone to went to Heathmont will probably know this story or have their own story like this.
Every class you ever had of his, whether he was filling in, or he was your regular teacher, would end probably about 10-15 minutes early. The classes would finish early so he could basically do trivia. Not trivia on anything we learnt about in the last hour, or week, or even year. It was trivia about shit that mattered to me, it was trivia about movies, tv shows and music. As you’ve already guessed, there was trivia about Ferris Bueller, so much trivia about Ferris Bueller in infact, thats what he was known for.
I knew the movie inside and out already, I had the answers, even the subjects that they are teaching in the opening scenes. I knew this movie. He obviously knew it too, well enough to be able to structure a whole 15 minute trivia session around it in pretty much every class I ever had with him.

After I had left school, I didn’t want to go back to that building for a long time, if not ever. I never really wanted to be there and I’m lucky that I had 3 friends who made it worth going every day and having endure all the bullshit that was high-school (again,  nothing new, just my experience)
Shaun and I would go back once or twice to say hello to some of the teachers or I would pick Josh up from school before he had his license.
But I didn’t really want to go back until Josh told me that Tony Grayden was leaving Heathmont and going to a different school. Josh like myself, thought the world of this teacher, so of course told me about Tony moving schools.
I decided to go down to the Heathmont on one of my days off from work.
Walking into the office, I felt like I had done something wrong again, felt like I was handing in a late slip, felt like I should be making fun of the principal who was a spitting image of Barry Bostwick, kinda scary how similar they looked.
It had been about 4 years since I had been inside the school. Waiting for the kids infront of me to talk to the office ladies, watching the line move, getting closer and closer to speaking to the office lady.
“Hi, I’m just wondering if Tony Grayden is teaching right now or if I’m able to say hi if he isn’t in class”
‘Do you have an appointment to see Mr Grayden?”
My head almost exploded, the tone this woman used, the attitude she had bought me right back to having to see the office ladies at school. Just wanting to scream at this woman “DROP THE ATTITUDE BITCH! I WORK IN AN OFFICE TOO, I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOUR FUCKING DAY IS LIKE, SO GROW UP AND TREAT PEOPLE OUTSIDE YOUR WEIRD LITTLE POD WITH THE RESPECT THAT YOU WANT TO BE SHOWN”
But being too scared to yell at this woman, knowing it would get me nowhere, I just politely said
“no, sorry, I didn’t know I had to have an appointment, I heard that Mr Grayden was leaving Heathmont and I just wanted to say thanks and wish him luck”
By this stage, she seemed to calm down a bit, but still wasn’t happy checking his roster for me.
In the end, it didn’t really matter, he was in the staff room and happened to walk through the office while I was standing there wanting to rip into this aggravating beast behind the desk.

I wished him well, spoke a little of Ferris Bueller, shook his hand. Then got in my car and drove Josh home from school.
Not a hugely monumental day in my life, but something that I felt like I owed the guy, a small gesture, that in no way, shape or form lives up to the life lessons he gave me. But as a small gesture of my appreciation to him for helping me become the person I have become. Whether it meant anything to him, who knows, I will probably never know. But it made me feel good, letting him know that he made enough of an impact on me for me to drag myself into a place I hate, deal with a wilderbeast, endure looking at the walls which looked like a Barry Bostwick lookalike contest. (Just to clarify, I’m talking Bostwick in Spin City, not Rocky Horror Bostwick). Just to say thanks and wish him the best.

This blog has more been just a rambling lot of thoughts loosely strung together with Ferris Bueller and went in a completely different place than I thought it would when I started writing it.

Well, lets see where I pick up next time.
If you made it this far…..thanks.

Also, if anyone who reads this is still in touch with Tony Grayden, would you please be able to pass this along to him, that would be great.

Until next time I feel the need to write,

BJ