todd stadler's day off

By Todd Stadler · Tuesday, June 26, 2001 5:59pm

Today was an unproductive day at the "office" (that is, my house), because the "network" (that is, my DSL connection), was down. So I took the day off, because my new "employer" (that is, me) has a really great "vacation policy", even if the "pay" really stinks (that is, I'm unemployed, but I didn't do what I had planned).

First, I spent some time pondering my new (lack-of-) job situation in a heavy-handed metaphor. But that quickly grew tiresome.

So I watched some videos lying around. Unfortunately, the only commercial videos I have in my possession are E.T. (a gift from my mom), a Chris Elliott video with two shorts on it (I think the only video I ever bought for myself, and one of the first things I bought on the Internet), and a DVD of Leprechaun 5: In the Hood (which I got free from work for embodying one of Intel's seven core values - don't corporations just baffle you?). None of those really merited watching again today.

So I watched some old videos of myself. I have one awfully edited video that tells the story of my junior high school band's trip to the TMEA convention in San Antonio, where we played that year as the CCC Honor band, whatever that means.

But it's not what the video is ostensibly about that interests me. It's video of myself in ninth grade that compels me to watch. A little bit of the events that shaped my life, captured in grainy VHS.

And it's not just me that I find so interesting. If anything, watching myself back then makes me cringe. I was so awkward, so goofy. But the others - the band directors and all my peers - seem so familiar to me. There are some I haven't seen since that video was made, and the images of them on the video are how I still imagine them to be, I guess.

Everyone else doesn't seem as awkward and goofy to me becuase that's how I remember them. That's how things were. It's frightening watching life as it was, replayed for you in unblinking detail, minus the edits, of course. And I'm not even trapped inside a house or in the Australian outback!

The other videos I have were made by a group of friends I had starting the summer after ninth grade. We would make up skits and do music videos. Inside jokes of dubious quality abound, as does an unrelenting fascination with cows.

It's like finding an old diary, only more embarrassing, as I do not have the ability to make myself look less gawky in my mind. No, there I am, skinny legs and all, wearing my then-girlfriend's bikini top (stuffed with socks) and Bugle Boy jean shorts, getting wacky to the lamest Beach Boys song of all time, "Kokomo".

I am so glad those days are gone.

If I ever have a child who thinks he is too cool for me, I will make him sit down and watch these abominable videos, however many hours of them there are. He will laugh at me. At the end, I will tell him, "that is you!" Then I will make him promise to never call Radiohead's music "wussy" again.