Beckett’s Last Mixtape – Chapter Five

ANTHO

 

Judge Roberts looks like my father. This is not a good thing.

Courtrooms are not what they look like on TV, or at least this one isn’t. It’s mostly off-white, with dark paneling at the judge’s bench and witness stand, and the Seal of the State of Arizona hanging behind him. Despite the fact that the ceiling isn’t two stories tall or that the floor is dark, polished wood does not make the space any less intimidating. My heart squeezes behind my ribs like a hand around a tennis ball.

Judge Roberts has asked me a question and is now waiting for me. So is everyone else.

I better make this good. This ain’t—

This isn’t a speech tournament. Lose there, and you don’t get a plaque. Lose here, and I’ll spend freshman year in the Maricopa County jail.

I clear my throat, wipe my hands on the thighs of my best navy blue dress pants, and stand.

“Yes I do, Your Honor.”

With that, I stride to the podium on my side of the room. I can see my lawyer, Mr. Goldsen, is both nervous and confident. He’s honestly not a lot older than me, by the look of him. My parents have known his parents for a long time. They play golf and tennis together at the club.

Judge Roberts sits back in his chair and appears to rock back and forth, holding a pen between his index fingers. He’s just asked if I have anything to say for myself, as Mr. Goldsen had said he probably would.

I have no note cards, nothing written down. This is extemporaneous speaking at it’s . . . what? Best? Finest? Most important?

Here we go:

“First of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak, Your Honor. I appreciate the consideration being shown me.”

He arches an eyebrow.

“Secondly . . . to be clear, I do accept responsibility for what I’ve done. It was a bad choice, and I do want to extend my apologies to Joe—uh, Mr. Bishop—for the harm I caused. I also want to apologize to my family and friends for putting them through this ordeal.”

The judge either nods, or rocks in his chair.

“I won’t try to excuse what I did, Your Honor, but I do wish to say that when it comes to my family and my friends, I am very protective. I’ve known Ashley Dixon most of my life. She’s like a sister to me. So when it was clear that someone had—by the definition of the law, Your Honor—had sexually assaulted her, I lost my cool and I reacted inappropriately. And while I certainly won’t let that happen again, I need to tell Ashley’s parents right here and now that I will always be there for her, and I will always do my best to protect her. If that protection has consequences, then I accept them.

“But again, Your Honor, if I ever face another situation like this, and I sincerely hope that I will not, then I will behave in a manner commensurate with the situation.”

Judge Roberts drops his pen on the desk and yanks his eyeglasses off. “Did you just say ‘commensurate’?”

“Um . . . yes, Your Honor.”

“And you’re how old again?”

“Almost fifteen, sir.”

He snaps his glasses back into place. “Go on.”

“That’s all I have, sir. Thank you.”

“I have to say, Mr. Lincoln, you are without a doubt the most eloquent and well-spoken fourteen-year-old I’ve ever met in this courthouse. In fact you may be the most eloquent and well-spoken person I’ve ever met in this courthouse.”

There’s a mild chuckle behind me from all the people here. They shut up when the judge shoots them a look.

“I don’t suppose you plan on becoming a lawyer.”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I do, Your Honor.”

He picks up some papers and snaps them with his hand to get them to stand straight on their own. “Straight As in junior high. You just started high school at . . . Camelback?”

“In August, yes sir.”

“Mmm-hmm. What are you taking?”

I struggle to remember my schedule. “Um . . . integrated math, honors English, speech one, business keyboarding, French, and earth science.”

“Speech? Are you competing? National Forensics?”

“Yes, sir, two weeks ago there was an AIA practice tournament.”

“How did you do, Mr. Lincoln?”

It is very hard not to smile. “First place in extemp debate, sir.”

“Well done, Mr. Lincoln.”

I force myself to be cool, and nod my thanks. I’ll start bragging if I open my mouth, and that feels like a poor idea right now.

“What about your extra-curriculars?” he asks.

“Speech and drama club, Your Honor. Masque & Gavel.”

“No athletics?”

“No, sir.”

The judge stares at the papers for a long moment before setting them down and pulling his glasses off again. “Mr. Lincoln, for the record, I want you to acknowledge that I have every right to sentence you to a jail term. Do you understand?”

My heart skips. “Yes, sir.”

“I also intend to make sure a young man of your caliber doesn’t step foot in this building again until you’re trying your first case.”

My heart resumes. Maybe—maybe—I pulled this off.

“I understand, Your Honor.”

“It is the order of this court,” he says, “that you serve one hundred hours of community service and attend not less than twenty hours of anger management classes and counselling. I’m also recommending without enforcement that you find a good sport or two to work out whatever aggression you’ve got to work out. Is that understood?”

Someone behind me lets out a breath like they’ve been holding it. I think it’s Mom. Or Dad. Or maybe Mr. Goldsen.

“Yes, Your Honor!”

“And finally, Mr. Lincoln, make no mistake. If you ever appear before me again for a charge of this nature, I will make it my business to ensure you won’t hurt anyone else for a very long time. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Very well. I’ll see you in about ten years, defending or prosecuting your first case. Court adjourned.”

He banges his gavel, and that’s that.

I’m not going to jail.

This time.

Beckett’s Last Mixtape – Chapter One

Friday, October 5, 1990

 

BECKETT

 

 

While it’s still only the first quarter of my first year at Camelback High School, so far my grades are a steady chord progression of Cs and Ds with an occasional F. When I walk home for lunch and Dad shows me this mid-term report, I call it the sheet music for “House of the Rising Sun.”

Dad gets the joke, but doesn’t think it’s funny. He looks pretty pissed, and it’s making me nervous.

I’d thought I would have time to bring my grades up before first-quarter report cards were sent home, but it turns out the school keeps track of things like this. And lets parents know.

Dad frowns at me as he re-strings his turquoise Rickenbacker bass. Mom hides in their bedroom, but that’s not unusual. She’d been apathetic about most things lately, including my grades.

Lately meaning like a year or more.

Actually . . . that might just be since I noticed.

After third period today, Anthony Lincoln invited me to his family cookout tomorrow afternoon at their house. I’ve known him since we were little, and our families have hung out many times. His family plans to talk on the phone to his brother Mike who’s halfway around the world. I didn’t think going to the cookout would be a big deal, but the mail’s arrived and Dad’s not too keen on letting me go.

“The cookout’s for all of us,” I tell Dad as he balances the bass on one knee. “We’re all invited.”

Dad and Mom have a gig tonight. At the shows, Dad’s hair reflects a rainbow of stage lights: orange, yellow, blue. Right now, the Phoenix sun shining through the living room window in our apartment reveals that his long, light brown hair has strings of gray in it that match the steel strings he guides through the bridge and bridge saddles.

I keep talking, hoping to distract him. “Antho said specifically that his parents want you and Mom to come, too. Ashley’ll be there, and her mom and dad—”

“But those grades, kid,” Dad says, spinning a machine head to wind the E string tight. “You need to spend every extra hour you got on getting those things up.”

Mom walks by right then, from their bedroom to the kitchenette. No—not walks. Shuffles. With bare feet. Her shoulder-length hair is clumpy and spaced as far apart as strings on a harp. She’s got a cup of coffee in her hand but I don’t see any steam. But there’s a new pot bubbling away on the counter, filling our shared space with the aroma of store-brand coffee. The coffee at Antho’s house smells a lot better.

“Of course she can go,” Mom says through half-closed eyes. She’s probably taken one of her pills. “It’s the Lincolns, Rob. It’s fine.”

“This isn’t about the Lincolns, Jennifer, it’s about Beckett’s grades, did you see this note?”

He points to the TV tray beside his chair. Gray fluffy stuffing sticks out the back of the seat. The little pink card with my current grades is from one of the Vice Principals, or at least his office, saying that I’m basically in danger of failing almost everything from Art to English. Even my music class is a C.

I haven’t been going lately.

Mom stops. Stares at nothing. She’s wearing a frayed yellow bathrobe open over loose jeans and a puckered black bra that may be older than me.

To Dad’s question, she has only this response:

“No.”

Then she goes on into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Mazzy Star starts up a second later. Red, oh red, the taste of blood . . .

Dad looks at the closed door for longer than a second before blinking and turning back to his instrument. His frown is deeper.

“We don’t know when we can talk to Mike again,” I tell Dad, and sit on our sun-faded brown couch against the wall. I punch the middle of my long blue linen skirt between my knees. “Antho said stuff’s really heating up over there.”

“Bush ran the CIA, he knows not to start a war with Iraq,” Dad says, winding another string. “Mike’ll be fine.”

“Still . . . come on, Dad, please?”

He sighs. “Why the bad grades, kid? What’s going on, huh? You on something? Is there some boy? What?”

I sit back and tap the fingers of my left hand rhythmically against my thumb. The callouses feel like the heel of my foot. Of all people, Mom and Dad should understand why I’m not spending a ton of time on homework. I just want what they have. To be out there, doing it. Making the music. Performing.

Dad isn’t so hip on the idea. Looking around the room, I guess I sort of understand why. Antho’s parents are both lawyers—and he probably will be too—and they have a beautiful house in Scottsdale, with polished hardwood floors and a red brick patio and barbeque. We live in a two-bedroom upstairs apartment with second- and third-hand furniture. The carpet springs curled pigtails of green thread every few feet. I haven’t gotten new clothes since Mom’s mother died a few years ago. Grandma Sue used to come into town once a year and take me shopping as both Christmas and birthday gifts while clucking about Mom and Dad’s “chosen profession.” The three of us shop at Goodwill when we need something.

All of which is fine with me.

And that’s my point. I’m used to it, but this is not what Dad “wants for me.”

Which is kind of hypocritical. He never graduated high school. He’s been gigging since he was like fifteen. Far as I’m concerned, that means I’m ready.

Dad plucks the unplugged bass, tuning it by ear. The E string rings out, tickling the soles of my bare feet.

“It’s just, it’s this one song,” I say. “I’ve been working on it since summer. It’s for Ashley and Antho.”

This gets Dad’s attention. He stops tuning. “A song, huh? What do you got so far? Let’s hear it.”

“I can’t, it’s not ready. It’s barely even chords yet.”

“Got lyrics?”

“They’re like . . . absent words, in my soul, sing to you alone . . . I don’t know.”

Dad resumes tuning the A to the E, “Damn. That voice of yours, kid. Gets me every time, you got that from your mom. Jesus. Okay, sorry, focus: this stuff with your grades. It’s gotta stop, Beck. You gotta bring those things up. Okay?”

Sensing a break, I say, “Yes. I’ll take care of it.”

“All right.” He tunes the A to the D.

I lean forward. “So I can go tomorrow?”

“All right. This time. But I will remember this conversation when your report card comes in.”

I get up and hug him. “Thank you! Are you guys coming?”

“It’s tomorrow night? No, we have a show at the Jar.”

“I’ll them you wanted to.”

Dad tunes the G to the D. “Yeah, do. Haven’t seen the Lincolns in a while.”

That’s true. I see Antho at school every day, but we haven’t gotten all the families together since maybe seventh grade.

I get a glass of water from the tap and go into my room, determined to get a head start on my math homework.

. . . Except instead, I pick up my Gibson Epiphone from its stand beside my window and play along with She Hangs Brightly bleeding through the thin wall from their bedroom. I’ve already figured out most of the chords.

Neither Mom nor Dad says anything about me playing instead of doing homework. I play through lunch.

And fifth period.



Hello and welcome to Beckett’s Last Mixtape!

Beckett was originally going to be a thesis for my MFA. Things happened, as things often do, and now I’m bringing it to life here on this platform as a serial novel instead.

Because I want you to have it.

When I was a kid, I told and wrote stories endlessly. Handwritten…typed on a manual typewriter…acted out in my backyard…recorded as improvised audiobooks.

And then, sometimes, I shared them. With Jennifer at the back of the school bus. With Jene during lunch. With teachers. With Brendan around the corner in my neighboorhood.

With anyone who’d take the time to read or listen.

It was me at my best, and so I want to do it again.

I hope you enjoyed Chapter One. I hope to post twice a month. Let me know what you think at any of the usual socials – pick your fave, leave me a message!

Thanks for being here.

~ Tom

 

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It’s About A Girl

I’d been wanting to start a novel with the line “It’s about a girl” for a long time. With manicpixiedreamgirl, I could cross that off my list. Because as a teen . . . man, everything was about a girl.

Turns out, this is the most autobiographical of my novels so far. Which is to say, like, five percent autobiographical. It is not a true story in the sense of it being nonfiction. Party and Zero were maybe two or three percent “true,” in terms of things that happened to me personally. But with manicpixiedreamgirl, I went a lot farther (further? Gah, who can keep those straight?) into my high school experience than in my previous novels.

Let’s call it “emotionally autobiographical.”

So, yes, it’s about a girl. I mean, what else is high school supposed to be about if not young/first/thrilling/doomed love?

There are two parts to this novel. There’s the semi-nostalgic, somewhat-regretful, true-ish part, where I got to relive those formative years and inspirations all over again, and that was fun. It stung a little, too, when I took the time to realize that, yeah, I was pretty much an idiot on my best days, and far worse on my worst days.

Still—we had a good time, and everyone pretty much turned out okay. Which is not the same as saying, “No one got hurt.”

Then there’s the grown-up, now-I’m-a-dad, author part. That’s the part that I want people to really take home with this novel. It’s the part that’s not so much about the protagonist, Tyler, but about his “dream girl,” Becky.

There are a lot of Beckys out there.

Guys and girls both who are willing to do pretty much anything to make the pain stop for a minute, or feel like someone at least knows they exist.

If you’ve read Party, you might think of Becky Webb as who Beckett Montgomery could have become had not things gone differently that night in Santa Barbara. Like so many of us, Becky is lost and abandoned and shattered. When we reach that point, no matter what our age, we often start doing things to ourselves not easily taken back or undone.

I’ve been there. Maybe you have, too. If you know what I’m talking about, then let me tell you this, too: Don’t give up. It gets better.

I hope you enjoy the story for the story itself. I hope you laugh at Tyler (and at me) for being such a doofblatt most of the time. (His heart’s in the right place, I think, but he’s also, you know…a boy, so.) I hope that, if you haven’t already, you find your own dreamgirl/dreamboy someday, like I have.

And I really hope that, on those days you feel like these characters, you’ll at the very least remember you’re not alone. ’Kay? Cool.

Take care.

For Teachers, As The Holidays Come To A Close

THE THIN CHALK LINE

Remember chalk? It was once used by teachers to illustrate things on a blackboard. Some older classrooms still have them, including on the main campus of ASU. I wonder if some teachers still prefer them. Me, I’m equally maladapted for handwriting no matter what the surface or medium.

So let’s imagine an old chalkboard in a class room. One piece of old yellow chalk. Draw a line horizontally across this chalkboard with that piece of chalk. Got it in your head? Cool. We’ll come back to it in a minute.

Over the past seven years, I’ve had the privilege and honor of going to schools where students of various ages — junior high to college — were in attendance to hear me talk about my novels. Here’s a sample of some of the things I’ve heard in that time:

English Teacher at a North Phoenix, upper-middle to upper-class district: “We know that if we built dormitories on this campus, we’d have students begging to be let into them. They’d rather live on campus 24/7 than go back to their homes and deal with the devastation there.”

Same teacher: “I’ve had kids ask if they could sleep overnight on my patio rather than go home. I have kids who come to school not know where they are going to sleep that night.”

Teacher, middle-class district: “You’ll have a lot of kids here after school because they don’t want to go home. They don’t have air conditioning.” (In August, in Phoenix.)

Student: “When did you know you wanted to be a writer…and what did your family think?

Student: “I wanted to direct a play, but my dad said no.”

Student: “I gave my mom a story I wrote. She read it and told me it sucked.”

I’ve got more. If you’re a teacher, you do too.

In eighth grade (at a private Christian school, mind you) I got my first cigarettes and my first joints. By freshman year, I was getting high as often as possible with people I thought were my friends because they laughed at me when I was high. I also joined the drama department that year. I was a pain in the ass to my drama teacher, Mrs. Ann Tully, who, by the way, will always be “Mrs. Tully” or just “Tully” no matter how old I get. Never “Ann.” And Mrs. Goldsen will always be “Goldie.” Period.

Our drama department put on two full length productions each year. Tully directed the first one, Goldie the second. Tully cast me in the first play that year, and the seniors were all beside themselves, saying, “Freshman don’t get cast in the plays!” I didn’t know that. Nor did I care. I had pot to smoke. But hey, the rehearsals were fun…

Toward the end of the year, I showed up to a speech and drama department meeting high as a kite. I have no idea what I said or did, but I know I laughed a lot. Loudly. Afterward, Tully pulled me aside and said, “I know you won’t remember any of this, but…”  And I don’t know what she said after that, so I guess she was right.

The next day, she showed up at my speech class, pulled me out, escorted me into a little windowless room down the hall, sat me down, shut the door, and sat across from me, so close our knees were practically touching. I looked at her feet the entire time. I know she said some things like “wasting your potential” and “have so much to offer” and “smarter than this” and so on. But what really stuck out was this:

“And if you ever, ever, step foot in this department for a class, a meeting, a rehearsal, anything, in that condition again, you will be out. No plays, no speech tournaments, no classes, no student assistant, nothing. Ever again. Am I clear?”

And I whispered, “Yes.”

It was the second to last time I ever got high, and the last time was terrible. Looking back at the direction I was heading, I have no doubt that had Tully not cast me in her show, and had she not had that little sit-down, there’s no telling where I would have ended up. Certainly not in a place where I’d have nine hardcover novels out at bookstores everywhere. (Years later, when Party came out, Goldie wrote to me and said, “See? I told you to do something with your writing!”)

Senior year, I went into their office, just a few days before graduation. Goldie was somewhere else, but Tully was there. By that point, I had become the department club president, won every possible acting award they had, become a speech team Letterman, ranked high in state speech competitions, attended three out-of-state actor training sessions with Tully at the Utah Shakespeare Festival…I was a drama department lifer. And I told Tully, “Thank you. Thanks for putting up with me, thanks for everything you taught me, thanks for being there.”

Mrs. Tully laughed.

“Don’t thank me,” she said.  “Thank Mrs. Goldsen!”

I said, “I’m going to…she’s just not here right now…”

Tully said, “No no, you don’t understand.  You really need to thank Mrs. Goldsen, because she’s the one who convinced me to cast you in that first play.”

I sat down. Hard. “What?

Tully nodded.  “You remember the kind of kid you were when you showed up here? There’s no way in hell I was going to put you in one of my shows. Mrs. Goldsen argued with me for more than hour, trying to convince me that you were worth it. The only reason I cast you was because she is my best friend. So thank her for all this. She’s the one who made it happen.”

Remember our chalk board, the one with the horizontal yellow chalk line?

That’s you.

You are the thin chalk line that separates kids like me from what they’re becoming to what they can be.  Junior high and high school teachers in particular are, in my opinion, the last line of defense for our nation’s children. After that, there’s no net, no safeties.

The friends I made in the drama department were also useless little hoods when they arrived. We had a guy with a criminal record for grand theft auto (one of my best friends). A struggling and recovering alcoholic at 16 (another best friend of mine). Too many more to mention. But you know where we are now? One became a combat medic with three combat tours on his sleeve.  Another became an English teacher. One founded a film festival, another joined him not long after.  All of us, at some point, worked together at a theatre company I started in my backyard.

On April 27, 2010, I got to hold my first-ever official book launch at a little indie book shop in Tempe, Arizona, called Changing Hands. We had about 100 people show up, which is incredible. And sitting together in the second row on my right were Tully and Goldie. They have never missed a book launch since then.

When I was 15, I wrote a play, and asked Tully if I could direct it for our annual showcase of one acts. She said I could do it.

She did not say that she “gave me permission.”  Listen closely to the difference: “I give you permission.”  vs. “Yes, you can do it.”  You. Can. Do this.  Fifteen years old.

Teenagers want you to teach them. They want to be driven.  They want to be pushed to excel.

Tully and Goldie expected and got excellence. They gave us authority and responsibility, and demanded not perfection, but our very best effort. And they got it. Every time. They were the thin chalk line.  And so are you.

You have kids in your class and school who aren’t sleeping at home tonight. I met one kid who joined the Marines because the risks of being sent to Afghanistan were better than being at home for one more year. I watched a counselor explain to a teenage girl how her parents’ joint custody of her was going to affect her college plans.

I know you are overworked. Underpaid. That the entire system is broken from the ground up. That our libraries are disappearing, along with our librarians, and good teachers are punished while bad teachers are rewarded. I know. And it’s not fair.

But we need you to hang in there. Don’t give up. You got into this gig, I hope, because you love teaching and you love students. Don’t stop. Fight back. You are all that remains between a generation of hopeless children and a generation that can take us beyond the moon. Raise your voices, be heard. Because in a few years, it’ll be my kids in your classroom. (I’ll do my part. Parents? Will you join me?)

There’s an old ’80s movie called Teachers, starring Nick Nolte and Judd Hirsch, and I hope some of you are old enough to even know who those actors are. The premise of the movie is that a former student is suing the school because he graduated without the ability to read. And I know there are schools in your city who are forcing you to give a kid who doesn’t turn in an assignment 50% instead of zero, and I know how absurd that is. I know middle schools are shoving poorly educated students right through the grade levels, and threatening teachers who don’t think a zero student should move up a grade. I know.

At the end of the film, a kid has pulled a false fire alarm, and the entire school empties out. In the movie, Judd Hirsch plays an administrator to Nick Nolte’s civics teacher. Hirsch has been beaten down by the system. In a tired voice, standing in the parking lot, he tells Nolte, “Half those kids aren’t even coming back after the fire alarm.”

And Nolte says, “But half will. I think they’re worth it. I’m a teacher.”

They are.

And so are you.

Thank you for all you do.

7 Things Students Can Do Right Now To Make The World A Better Place

I’m addressing you, students, because you have the strength and will that older people mostly do not. Young people start nations; old people bitch about them. It’s the way of the world. If you’re not happy with your world right now, there are steps you can take today that can tangibly impact your world right this very second.

(And old people, if you want to join in, that’s cool, too.)

1. Listen.

One of the best things any of us can do is listen to other people. Try to avoid rushing to judgement, try to avoid rushing to a “fix.” Just listen. Ask questions. Make eye contact. Those simple things may make all the difference to someone, including you. You don’t have to change your mind about a topic, but you do have to leave room for it to marinate a bit. Let people’s stories impact you.

2. Don’t talk shit.

And on that note, don’t talk shit to or about other people. I talk so much shit, it’s unreal, but only when I’m alone in the car. And you know what? It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make me feel better, it doesn’t change the assholes from being assholes. (Seriously, who lets their dog crap twelve inches away from a free dog-poop-bag dispenser? The same able-bodied shitbags who park in handicapped spots, I bet.)

So, yes, it may feel good for a moment to rag on someone, but it is not helping the world. Especially petty, gossipy bullshit.

There are two people, two very specific people alive in this world today that I hate with the heat of a thousand burning suns. And you know what? That hate has done nothing for me. Not a thing. This year, I will forgive them. Somehow. Maybe with the help of some Metta meditation, maybe by sheer force of will, but I will do it. It’s not hurting them, it’s hurting me.

Furthermore, back-stabbing and shit-talking online has got to stop. Just don’t participate in that bottom-feeder bullshit. You’re better than that. We all are. Being a petty little shit online is for…petty little shits. We need fewer of those, and a lot more of people saying, “Hey, I’m here.”

Remember Random? Remember that that book was based on a true story? (Or, more likely, hundreds of true stories.) If our “hero” had simply spoken up, spoken kindly when she had the chance, a life might have been saved. Again, this was based on a true story. This happens every day in this country, and I’m sick of it, and you should be, too.

Be kind online or don’t even bother logging on. Post pictures of puppies and kittens if you want, but don’t get caught up in the rumor mill or hater spaces. I promise you have much better things to do than that. For example:

3. Ask him/her out.

Just do it! The worst that happens is nothing. You will have a great story to tell a few years from now, no matter the result. And don’t, like, text it or something. Man- or Woman-up and go face to face and say, “Hey, want to go grab some coffee sometime?” or whatever it is you think will work. Don’t be cutesy or clever, just be sincere. Smile. I swear to you, even if you get laughed at (you probably won’t), it will not be the end of the world if he/she says no. How much trouble might Tyler have saved himself if he’d just goddamned talked to Becky that first day? We’ll never know. But a kind smile and some nice words will go a long, long way toward making a friend or a date. Or both.

4. Reduce/eliminate eating meat.

I am not a climate scientist or medical doctor, nor do I claim to be, and I don’t give a shit whether you “believe in” science or not. That’s your issue. My issue is simply this: Reducing or eliminating your meat intake is good for your body, your neighborhood, your state, your country, and your planet. You do not have to go all-out vegan—my family is what I call “veering vegan” without making some kind of blood-oath of fealty to Mother Gaia. But we don’t have meat more than, say, once a month anymore. If everyone pulled back on meat consumption, there are benefits for everyone.

Just consider it, it’s all I ask. Google it. Here, I did it for you: What happens if we stop eating meat?

5. Do that thing you like doing, no matter what anyone says.

You have a thing you love to do. You know what it is. Maybe it’s writing stories or poetry or lyrics, or painting or drawing or sculpting, or golfing or dog walking or yoga or krav maga, or acting or directing or filming or editing….

You get the idea. There’s something you deeply love to do.

Go do that thing. Once a week, minimum, if possible. Once a month will do. You deserve to do that thing. (If it’s not, say, being a homicidal maniac, that is.) This world needs all of us to relentlessly pursue the things we love, the things that make us happy to be here, the things that define us. When we do that, we’re better able to deal with the crap that comes at us. Our stress level goes down, and our relationships improve. I hate the idea of anyone, anywhere, not being able to do at least a little bit of the thing they love. I may never sell another novel in my life, but I will still write several a year because it’s who I am. It’s what I do. It’s one of the things that makes me, me.

So go do your thing.

6. Which reminds me, STAY THE FUCK HERE.

Not kidding. Suicide is fucking bullshit, period, full stop. Ask anyone who’s had to live with someone they love doing it. So, don’t. Ever. Just don’t. Wait. Give it a day or a week or a month or a year, but so help me baby Jesus, things will get better after high school, and even better after college-age. Ask me how I know. But you won’t find out if you don’t STAY HERE. Put the Suicide Prevention Hotline number into your phone right now and you call that thing the very moment it even crosses your mind.

Let’s make 2017 the year we didn’t lose one more kid to suicide.

You being here makes the world a better place. See how easy that is? Just stick around. Someone needs you. I know I do.

National Suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255

 

7. Watch the sunrise or sunset.

When you get a chance, take just a minute, or five, or ten, and watch the sun come up or set. If nothing else it’s a reminder to take a moment and breathe, clear your head, and put all the craziness of the world in its place. It works for me.

Here’s to 2017. We got this.

 

 

Author Visits Santa Barbara High School, Inspiration for First Novel

Author Visits Santa Barbara High School, Inspiration for First Novel

Driving out of Santa Barbara on the last leg of his honeymoon, then-unpublished writer Tom Leveen suddenly shouted, “Write this down!” His new wife, Joy, already accustomed to such outbursts of inspiration, pulled a pen and notebook out of her bag. Tom dictated a carefully worded paragraph about a girl named Beckett, whose mother had recently passed away. Beckett is certain no one in school even knows her name—unaware of the boy who’s been crushing on her for years, and unaware of the drama and triumph of the night that lays ahead.

That paragraph never made it into Leveen’s debut young adult novel, Party (Random House Children’s Books, 2010) but the character of Beckett did. So did Leveen’s thrall with Santa Barbara. He now returns to the city for a short visit, and his first actual trip to Santa Barbara High School, where he’ll be meeting with students and teaching classes on writing.

“Santa Barbara has this aura that I fell in love with immediately,” Leveen says. “My wife went to college here, and took me to all her favorite hangouts during the time we spent here on our honeymoon: East Beach Grill, the Mission, Coffee Cat, Shoreline Beach, Super Cucas. They all ended up in the novel, which didn’t get published until about five years after I dictated that first paragraph to my wife.”

Party is geared toward high school students, but has enjoyed broad crossover appeal to adults who avidly read YA fiction. Leveen’s novel is only eleven chapters, but each is told entirely by a different character, so the true motivations and stories of each of the eleven protagonists can’t be known until the book’s end.

While the setting is, in fact, a high school graduation party near Shoreline Beach, the themes are anything but celebratory.

“A racially motivated fistfight anchors the main plot,” Leveen says, “but there are subplots that orbit around that. One of the main themes is ‘say words,’ that if these characters had all talked to one another instead of making judgements or assumptions, none of the conflict in the novel would have happened. It turns out that this theme, particularly about race and religion as it appears in the book, has become more important for teens to talk about these days, not less.”

Several aspects of the story are based on real-life events, Leveen says, including the hate-crime murder of a Sikh in his native state of Arizona following 9/11, as well as the story of Pat Tillman, a football player who gave up his shot at the NFL to join the military.

And for those who like a little romance to temper the drama, Leveen promises there is also a very sweet romantic plot about Beckett and her secret admirer.

Leveen will visit Santa Barbara High School on October 13, 2016 for private classes. For more information or to set up a book talk, class, or interview, Tom is on Facebook at /AuthorTomLeveen, and Twitter at @tomleveen.

 

Z Resurrected

11304536_710698029057817_1650159678_nZ Resurrected is a unique anthology featuring characters from previously published zombie novels, including Sick.

Trapped for hours away from Brian, Kenzie, and the rest of her friends, Laura Fitzgerald struggles to control her panic while still evading – or defeating – the monstrous infected students outside. But her lone ally in this fight for her life doesn’t have much time left…

Coming in October 2015!

 

 

Tuesday, November 12
Phoenix Metro High School
Phoenix, Arizona
5:04 p.m.

Um—

My name is Laura Fitzgerald, I’m seventeen . . . and I really, really want to be eighteen someday.

I don’t know what’s going on, exactly. It feels like the world is ending out there. I’m scared, and there’s no one else in here but me. This is Cody’s phone, not mine. I guess you know that. Whoever you are. Whoever finds this, I mean.

If Cody’s mom or dad hears this, I’m sorry about Cody, I did everything I could. I swear.

God . . .

I don’t know . . . I don’t know how long I can stay in here. I don’t have any food or water. But they’re still out there, I can hear them. Sometimes I hear someone scream out there.

Um . . .

Honestly? I’m kind of surprised I can even talk right now, usually I’d be curled up in a little ball somewhere. That’s what I really want to do. But I can’t. They’ll get me if I do.

Oh, God. God.

No. Okay. Stop. Breathe. I can do this. I can do it.

Uh—

I just, I thought I should explain everything, because maybe it will help? I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone will ever find this . . . but, um . . .

Okay.

This is what happened.

Things To Do While Still In High School #1 – Own the Angst

While everyone else was out drinking, getting high, or, you know, going on dates with actual girls, I was doing this, with apologies in advance to any Depeche Mode fans:

Can you feel the angst? It drips from the ceiling. The story behind this video is not the point (it’s a good story, maybe for later). The point is, you should do this.

I don’t necessarily mean making an angst-ridden video, although I know that happens a lot on YouTube and elsewhere. (Here, I was going to post an example YouTube video, but I got too depressed reading the comments people were leaving. The shit people feel free to say online drives me insane, hence my novel RANDOM, which is inspired by real events and by events you probably have experienced yourself, statistically speaking.)

The reality is adolescent brains are cooking on overtime. You probably know that much. That’s not an excuse to do stupid or dangerous things. Don’t drink and drive, for example. Don’t get pregnant or get anyone pregnant (just trust me on that one, okay? You’ll be glad later if you dodge that).

But while I’m a huge proponent of #stayhere and not doing things your body or mind can’t recover from, I also believe you should be yourself, and experience everything there is to experience right now. Angst is good.  It can be harmful, but it can also be a lot of fun. It’s like, on the one hand, people are always telling you to grow up, and that’s fair; this is your origin story. The decisions you make today will reverb down through the rest of your life. They will. I promise, they will. Good and bad ones, they’ll stick with you. So make good ones.

But on the other hand, don’t grow up too fast, either. See, the other side of this “grow up” mentality that most so-called grown-ups won’t tell you is that this is when you should fail. You should reach for the sky and get knocked down. It’s so much better to do that now than in your twenties, and better in your twenties than your thirties, and so on. (We’ll talk about your twenties some other time. That’s a whole other mess.)

I’m not saying to be irresponsible. On the contrary, you should be exceptionally responsible, because that’ll pay off later. But go up and ask that guy that out! Ask that girl out! Go on adventures. Stay up till the sun rises once in a while. Confide your secrets. Give your heart to someone, and then survive when he or she tosses it casually into a woodchipper. Which he or she will inevitably do.

And when everything goes wrong, make an angsty music video.

Then go dance, sing, lip-synch, whatever. This is your time. Own it. Yes, be careful…but own it all the same. Life will settle down soon enough. Sooner than you can imagine. Don’t rush for it.

Maybe I’m telling you stuff you already know, in which case—good! I’m glad you’re out there kicking metaphorical ass and having a great time.

But if you didn’t know this, if you didn’t realize that this was your time to both shine and suffer, then I encourage you to try both. I’m not advising you this because I regret not doing it myself—I’m advising you this way because I did. We lived up every second of high school, good and bad, diving deep into whatever the moment brought. I got hurt. I hurt others. I regret the second one, but not the first.

I don’t write YA because I didn’t have a great time; I write YA because I did. And I want you to. All of you. All of us.

Anyway. Sermon over. Have a great weekend, huh?

And, P.S. Just in case any friends want to leave snarky comments, remember – I have your videos too. Don’t push me, man. Don’t push me.

 Take care, stay here, say words.

~ Tom

 

…but half will.

One of my favorite movies is Teachers with Nick Nolte, Ralph Macchio, a teeny tiny Laura Dern, JoBeth Williams…ah, anyway, a bunch of good actors.  It has one of my favorite set of movie lines ever and is the topic of this evening’s post.  Ralph Macchio’s character has set off the school fire alarm, and the entire high school empties out into the parking lot, thrilled to be out of class, smoking in the parking lot, etc.  Nolte, a teacher, has this exchange with Judd Hirsch, a vice principal (paraphrased):

HIRSCH:  Alex, half those kids won’t come back after the fire alarm.

NOLTE: But half will.  I think they’re worth it.

They are.  They’re all worth it.  Lookit, trust me, there’s a whole lot of teachers and other grown-uppy types out there who were probably certain where my future was, and it sure as hell wasn’t where I ended up (thank God).  I wouldn’t say I was a bad kid, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.  What I do know is this: A small but dedicated group of those grown-uppy types didn’t give up on me.  They were hard sometimes, they lost patience with me, yes, and some of ’em I went out of my way to make miserable.  (Apologies for that, if any of you are out there.) 

But when all was said and done, they said, in effect, “He’s worth it.”  They didn’t have to.  They chose to.  And in about six weeks, my first novel is going to be on the shelves as a result.  I was one of the half that came back.  So were most of my friends.  Where might we be if not for those teachers and leaders who didn’t let us give up on ourselves?  (Not blogging on my author website, for one…)

I can’t take back a lot of the evil, vile crap I did to some of my teachers over the years.  But I can and I will do my best to pick up where they left off.  Fact is, a pretty large percentage of teens only needs one thing: for one adult to stand up, to fight for them, to be there.  Yeah, they’re gonna mess up, make mistakes, pull fire alarms.  That’s what teenagers do.  (And I get to write books about it!) They also care tremendously – about a lot of different things.  They have the time and energy to devote to change things that  a lot of us grown-uppy types don’t.  Or won’t.

This applies equally to adults and teens:  Don’t let anyone ever, ever tell you can’t do something, and don’t ever give up on going after what you want.  Make choices today, even small ones, that will bring you closer to your goals.  Because half the people you know today aren’t coming back after the alarm.  But half will.  The only question is, which group do you belong to?

I think you’re worth it.