For All the Misfits in the World

Which in itself is a bit of an oddity, since I rarely watch the boob tube, but last night I was watching, and a commercial came on for a movie called “Under the Electric Sky.” I was totally ignorant about this movie. Evidently it chronicles some music festival that began in 1997 and has turned into the largest music festival in North America. Shows you how much I pay attention, because I wasn’t even aware that it existed.

But I digress….

So this commercial comes on, and the camera zooms in on this guy who says that this festival is attended by all those kids who used to sit alone in the school lunchroom. I had to laugh at that, because I was one of those kids.

I was a misfit!

And today I’m proud of it.

So, this one is for any of my misfit brothers, or sisters, out there.

Long live the misfits!

May you always be un-cool!

“I probably have fundamentally antisocial tendencies. I never took one extracurricular activity. I just failed utterly at that level. Part of me still rebels against that.”

Maya Lin

You’ve all seen them at school. In the socially-stunted microcosm of higher learning, they are the ones walking the crowded halls alone, as though a force-field separates them from the In Crowd. They eat lunch alone, go to games alone, join no clubs, and while others worry about makeup and designer clothes, they are tattooing their asses and piercing their extremities. They are the rejects, the dejects, the fringers and the just plain weirdoes.

They can’t quite tune into the station of life everyone else is listening to. Too much static, can’t quite hit the right frequency, born under a bad sign, take your pick of reasons, but while most of the students are living life in the key of F, the misfits are stumbling along in F sharp, out of tune and out of step every inch of their teen years.

School bell rings and it’s lunch alone. School bell rings and it’s ride in silence on the school bus. Off to their rooms they go, strap on their headphones, and listen to alternative whatever while the majority grooves to the Top Ten. They write poetry and pour their hearts out to the universal muse, or they strum a guitar in hopes that someone, somewhere, will hear the notes they hear, and when they go to sleep at night, their minds are inundated with thoughts of substance, heaviness, struggle, and yes, self-doubt.

Long live the misfits!

“Anybody that goes to the theater, I think we're all misfits, so we ended up on stage or in the audience.”

Patti LuPone

If there were slide rules today, they would have one in their shirt pockets. While others are discussing the latest movies or hot social spots, there are those who spend their evenings formulating, postulating, and theorizing.

Ask them a question about Facebook and a blank stare envelops their face. Ask them about alternative universes and they come alive and animated.

Social skills they have few, but they can solve an equation in the time it takes you to type lol. You go off to work to your cubicle as a worker bee in the economic machine. They designed the machine. The simplest, mundane, brain dead small talk is beyond them, but one day they will discover how to communicate with all living organisms.

You won’t find them on any social register, and they don’t hang out at Cheers, because nobody knows their name, but where in the world would we all be without them?

Long live the misfits!

Designer jeans, print blouses, Macy’s, the Gap, you gotta be kidding me. The misfits of the world take pride in the mismatched, on sale, closeout, bargain basement, off-the-rack-and-into-the-garbage, anything but hot outerwear. They had holes in their clothes until holes were in and now no holes will you find on their behind.

Their statement is no statement, and no statement is a statement, so follow that if you can. You want art? Check out their biceps, their quadriceps, their glutes and yes, their penises, all are resplendent in Satan’s face, death masks, scorpions and howling banshees. Their bodies are their canvases, a walking, talking art museum where all are welcome to gaze and be amazed.

And when the ink runs out, or they run out of square inches of flesh, then the metal arrives, through the lips, through the eye brows, through the tongues and yes, through the penises, and ain’t that a howling banshee?

Approve or disapprove, it makes no goddamn to them, just leave them be and allow their expression to be free.

Long live the misfits!

“When you feel like an oddball, it never really leaves you. Even now, I'm better around people who are uncomfortable with themselves - the misfits.”

Chris Pine

These rejects see things that never were and ask why not. They are the writers, the poets, the artists and the musicians. They sculpt, they play, they sing, and they script. You can find them on the corner of 4^th and State playing Mr. Bojangles for a buck tip and a tip of the hat, and you can find them at the Philharmonic pulling in thousands. You can find them tagging the side of a building and you can find their work in the Louvre.

Tell them they just might spend their lives in obscurity and unsure of where the next meal will come from, and they will sign on the dotted line to feed their inner hunger. Tell them they will be rejected thousands of times, and they will dream of the one acceptance. Explain to them, in very logical manner, that they need to join the economic system and make an honest living, and they will sadly shake their heads and wonder what planet you came from.

These are the kids who doodled during lectures in college. These are the kids who had their asses spanked for drawing on their bedroom walls, and for not doing their chores when they would rather write in iambic pentameter. To squash their creativity is to rip their very lungs out, and in so doing deprive the rest of us of their creations.

Long live the misfits!

These folks aren’t even in the same zip code as cool. They still read comic books, still believed in Santa Claus until they were fifteen, and firmly believe that flannel is more comfortable, and more practical, than satin. While others are cheering their favorite sports team at the bar, the uncool are bowling. While others know the names of every member of Maroon 5, the misfits are humming old Benny Goodman tunes.

They have one foot in the past and are creating the future. They will vote Green, support transgender, and spit in the face of the establishment. They are purple-haired, pink-haired, dressed all in black, and they completely embrace the Live-and-Let-Live philosophy of life.

And where would we be, as a society, without them?

LONG LIVE THE MISFITS!

2014 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)