There is nothing that I will ever miss about high school more than Visions. In short, it is the literary arts community that, at the time of my attendance, put out annual magazines. As I’ve made contact with members in recent years, I am saddened to report that this trend doesn’t occur anymore and they’re reduced to online zines. I learned this the hard way when my former English teacher Vann rejected a donation that I wanted to give. For as much as he had the right to do so, there was something heartbreaking about it for a few reasons.
The most noteworthy is that I remember being one of those students. When we went to poetry readings, we were as much there to celebrate as it was rallying the troops. We’d send around a can or jug and collect donations for the magazine. Someone would count up the earnings and report by the end of the night how much was accumulated. It was a way of feeling like our community was helping each other. A triumph for one was a triumph for all.
The final product more than spoke for itself. Much like the yearbook, there was something to opening that box and holding the glossy-covered creation in our hand. It’s what we had spent several months assembling. From the promotion and submissions phase to the final layout editing, we worked together, often during extracurricular hours or after school, to make these magazines that meant something to us. Nowadays, it’s my only lingering memory of a lot of the students, and I’m grateful to hold onto it and hear their voices in their formative states. In an optimistic world, I want to believe they all went on to follow their dreams while also build a greater, more creative voice.
So to return to my donation story. I was initially offended that Vann rejected it. To me, it was everything that I imagined I’d do as an alumnus. While I don’t know that I’ve fulfilled the mentorship role, I still wanted to show my support in small ways. Something about showing the younger students that they were reaching a wider audience meant a lot to me. Having that donation rejected also meant that the magazine was a thing of the past. It was no longer going to be the documented proof that they were here. I am sure that they have their own ways. For what it’s worth, they’re making Visions their own thing and that’s most important. They ended their final reading a few years ago by having a celebratory cake, streamed on Instagram.
But to the point of “documented proof.” I didn’t leave that exchange without being taken aback in another way. Even if Vann had changed rooms since I was there, he claimed to have a picture on his wall from those days. If I remember right, he claimed that it was the magazine. He referred to those times as “the glory days,” and I can only begin to assume how it was. Without judging the rest of his time as a teacher, there was something about his demeanor that suggested exhaustion, possibly from dealing with students and parents in a post-quarantine world. I don’t wish to speak to his overall disposition since he’ll be the first to say that he felt it was important to worry. However, I do think that when comparing where Visions is to where it was, the late 2000s were probably the most “productive” period, let’s just say.
Let's begin in 2004. While it’s true that I wouldn’t join Visions until 2005 as a Sophomore, there was a built-in curiosity since my first day. As mentioned in my Freshman entry, I had this attachment to Vann being my English teacher. His walls had black wallpaper. His podium was covered in band stickers for punk bands I was getting into. At different points, he used Subhumans and 2Pac lyrics in lesson plans to reflect how rhetoric was used. There was something innovative about him, especially coming from a Catholic school where everything was more by the book.
It makes sense why he was one of the first people I met going in and among the last going out. At graduation, he flagged me down amid the crowd of graduates and said “We did it!” It’s safe to say that he’s one of the most significant teachers I had in my high school career. He helped to open my eyes and explore different ways of expression. When I used the creative writing class as a place to complain about how I wasn’t understanding classic literature, he gave constructive feedback. There was an understanding to him that made you realize that he wanted to make the students feel comfortable. I even overheard him say one time that he chose to teach “How to Kill a Mockingbird” over “The Odyssey” because of how relevant it was to students.
While the Freshman year was mostly centered on academics, there was one incident where things could’ve changed slightly. Given how much I felt attached to Vann as a teacher, my first extracurricular meeting came about a month into Freshman year. Nervously, I stuck around listening to students talk about Visions. During lunch, there was discussion of goals for the year and the desire to build a magazine. Something about it intimidated me, so I didn’t go back the next week. Even then, there was this curious peripheral aura that existed whenever I entered his classroom.
The reality was that I wanted to join Visions. But when you’re a Freshman and an introvert, it’s not easy to feel like you belong anywhere. Just looking at the other students, there was a camaraderie that made you feel excluded. Not because they were putting up a mean fence, but just because they had a comfortable familiarity with each other that made you feel like your voice didn’t matter. Even if I wrote poetry through the latter half of middle school, I didn’t believe I was ready to join forces.
Which makes it interesting that on the last day of Freshman year, Vann walked up to me when walking from Massich’s History class and personally invited me to join next year. I had intentions to at least try, but that was the push I needed. As far as I could tell, he thought I had an interesting perspective whenever I wrote essays for him. I was less coordinated and more just writing what came to mind. For example, we once studied “Romeo & Juliet” and he told us to create our own version of “forbidden love” that could be similar.
What I ultimately came up with was something that still surprises me to this day. It was less a story of two people and more a study of a homeless man who was squatting in a house. His love of shelter outweighed any fear of being caught. Given that I’m sure the other students were writing more direct interpretations, I want to believe he found that intriguing. That, and when searching through my files, I discovered that I accidentally stapled a tab page for Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Around the World” into the middle of things. There was never a comment. I just came across it 10 years later and was really surprised.
Before I start on 2005, I want to briefly touch on the one notorious incident related to that Freshman year. While I didn’t know many of the writers and artists who created the magazine, it lives with some derision among anyone who looks back on the issue. Again, I don’t know how intentional anything about it was. I’d like to think that given this was Vann’s inaugural year after being handed control from another teacher, I want to believe that it was just the byproduct of limited resources.
In the middle of the frame was a figure with four arms, all presented in a circular motion. However, because their hands were all bent, the results looked a bit like a swastika. It’s the type of image that makes me wonder how intentional it was and what was only discovered afterwards. After all, I was stapling bass tabs to my essays. We weren’t the most coordinated age group imaginable. Still, I pull it out once in awhile and realize that at least things got better from there. I don’t think we ever had a “mistake” on par with that.
Jumping to 2005-2006, I was approaching it with better disposition. I was in journalism class. I was going to try being more involved and produce something meaningful. Visions for me was the greatest potential achievement that semester.
And so, I showed up to that first meeting. I felt less like an outsider since I had spent a whole year going into that classroom. Even if the students felt a bit disconnected still, I was going to do my best to fit in.
They were all the grade above me. They had staked their claim in the program and I felt captured a seniority that might put me at a disadvantage. In general, poetry kids tend to be self-sufficient to the point that I felt the need to try and impress them. They would come in with mix tapes and hang out after school just playing these art rock bands and discussing their trips to record stores and concerts. I think it’s that sense of inadequacy that made me continually want to explore culture in the hopes that I could find ways to connect with them. Then again, I think everyone in Visions had this personality that craved individuality and having the one or two things that only they understood.
It's maybe why I saw Anthony as a bit of an oddity. I thought he was going to be dark and hard to reach. So, I was sitting on a couch next to him. I needed to come up with something abstract. They were talking about different ways they could mess with the schoolboard, and my answer was the, in hindsight banal, comment of “Like we could have a transgender cheerleader.” I don’t know why I thought he’d be into gender-bending stuff, but I thought poets were like that. They were pushing boundaries and wanted to confuse the public. Given that I had nothing to lose by saying that, I wasn’t nervous. It was another example of acting out in the hopes of seeking approval. He responded, “I like you.”
I bring up Anthony because I believe he was the lifeblood of Visions for at least two of the years that I was there. He was always in Vann’s room. When it came to poetry readings, he gave some of the most dramatic readings, hunched over the podium and putting on this deep, brooding voice. I want to say he was part of the performance art piece where five students reenacted Pink Floyd’s “tear down the wall!” at a reading. He had a flair for theatricality even if he wasn’t in the theater department. Not only that, but it felt like he was one of the most supportive and collaborative people I knew in that time.
There were a handful of others that would come and go in that time. Sara was a very nice woman who was into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We were on the more casual side of things, but she’d always check in with me on Myspace (and later Facebook). Of everyone from that time, she’s still on my friend’s list. She has a family now and seems to be a great mother who likes to do a lot of fun things.
The thing about Visions also is that because it’s poetry, there are a lot of interesting personalities who came and went. There were those who existed more out of curiosity. They were the shy types who wanted to express themselves, but weren’t exactly “tortured” by any extent. They had their own interesting perspectives, but they’d amount to mostly witty little pieces about their weekends. Every now and then, you’d pick up the aura of students who were closer to “tortured” because there was some side detail about their home life. They’d have a heaviness or anxiety in them that mirrored how nervous I was talking to them. They were still friendly and great to talk to, but the reliability could be difficult. They weren’t in the same echelon as Anthony. There was no guarantee if they’d always be there.
To be honest, there weren’t that many bad students that I met through Visions. I have to believe that the kid I’m about to describe wasn’t involved in any of it, but I don’t know where else to put him. There was this guy I’ll call Hector who seemed a bit more antagonistic. Not enough to turn you off, but he had that Mid-2000s aggro behavior that was common. At one point he pulled me over and said that he rewrote The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” His revision? “Oh, look at all the stupid people, where do they all come from?” At least it was better than this white kid I once saw rapping and his only gimmick was that every line ended with “bitch.” Even at that age, I felt like I craved a more complicated sense of humor.
So the first meeting goes and it’s a big enough success. As with the previous year, the idea was to keep going until a plan was put into place. Since my Sophomore year isn’t classified as “memorable” under the Visions umbrella, I’ll just use this space to discuss what the overall process of a semester was like.
There would be the initial meetings. Ideally, a plan would emerge by the end of the first month about our first poetry reading. At the time, Visions was a smaller affair, so we held it at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf that existed less than a block away from campus. It was there that I had my first public reading, but far from my last. When things ended, we’d snap our fingers and have the host read the next name off of a sign-up sheet. The only conflict of doing it this way is we had to compete with actual customers for space and noise. Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think we had a microphone. Vann would lug his podium over, which was our symbol of creativity to say whatever was on our mind.
From the first reading to the last, I have to believe that most of my poems were at some stage written in a classroom. When I got bored in another class, I’d pull out a notebook. There were at least a dozen times where I would write my poem hours before the reading. I’d sit there editing it and creating something that I thought was interesting. To me, they weren’t necessarily funny, but clever. However, the gist among audiences became that I was the funny one. I was the break from the “tortured” artist. On the bright side, I think it helped that I didn’t try to be funny. I was writing from a personal angle. Even then, I’ve written some bad ones, like when I mixed the plot of Airplane! (1980) with an allegory for crafting a magazine. We’d also hold readings for a local elementary school, which was amusing because it meant that Vann had to tell certain students to tone it down.
I don’t believe that the first year was all that complicated around the Coffee Bean. Sometimes we went a little distance to a nearby coffee shop by Long Beach Community College. Even then, attendance was roughly the size of the group at that time.
From there, it was time to raise awareness of the magazine. Once a theme was settled on, Vann and crew would be responsible for getting the word out. I have to believe he told other English teachers and the few who believed in the cause pushed their class to write something. Meanwhile, the students would draw their own flyers before walking around campus and placing them on poles with blue tape. This was one of the most enjoyable experiences because it was often during class hours and it gave us time to talk about nonsense while looking into random classrooms to get attention from friends. We didn’t get in trouble, though the poetry department had their own risks. Ideas of violence, depression, or substance abuse would enter the works. It’s because of that group that I learned the meaning “barbiturates." Vann was a trooper and went to bat against the principal. Luckily both were copacetic enough to make a magazine that felt honest without blaspheming the codes of conduct.
From there, the submissions would be given to Vann’s room by a deadline. Once that date passed, it was up to us to read everything and vote yay/nay on what we liked. From there, a majority vote meant that it would advance to the next round and given opportunity to be paired with the submitted artwork. In the case of art, there were times where we had a great piece of writing that didn’t compliment anything else. As a result, someone within the inner circle would have to either draw or create photography. Even if Visions rarely felt like it tipped over into being an exhibition for one creator, I have to believe outsiders thought we were making stuff up.
From there it would be assembled into a rough outline. Vann would give us parameters that had to be met in order for it to be approved by the printer. At the same time, he was precious about the scanner, believing it to be the most essential tool. Given that I wasn’t a master of Photoshop, I wasn’t involved with the transference of materials onto the computer. However, I would be assigned to spreads. All the while, the art kids would be playing their music in the background. My intimidation of never learning who half the bands were only gave them extra distance, even if we came to see each other as cool. Depending on where things were with journalism, Cathcart allowed me to visit Vann and edit materials as she saw appropriate.
From there, it would be proofread and sent to the printers. Vann invited students along to visit and learn about the process it took to complete. Often it was sitting around while Vann took care of the paperwork, but it was a nice lesson in production. Because of the hours we did it in, he usually brought his son and we found ways to amuse him. After completion at the printers, we’d pick up boxes and deliver them to Vann’s room. He wasn’t precious about us “purchasing” a copy. Those who brought in the boxes often got dibs, and I did that at least once. There was something thrilling about exclusivity, especially knowing you had a whole 12 hours until the next round of people got to see it.
On average, a magazine would cost $5. There would also be student-designed t-shirts that made the rounds. All of this was leading up to what was commonly known as “Visions Night.” Because I am still technically on my Sophomore year, I will discuss it from those parameters.
This wasn’t the popular era. Even if the magazine was a complete success and reflected our collective efforts, Visions Night was far from being what it would become. Our expectations of attendance meant that we would be holding it in the cafeteria. In order to save money, my father donated supplies to the operation, including tables. Because of how things were organized, I was responsible for calling him during the final period of the day and making sure he knew where to go. However, because I had nowhere else but the hallway to do the phone call, I got caught by an unknowing teacher who told me to get off my phone.
The set-up was rudimentary. Part of it was by the cafeteria’s design. We had access to the back wall. One of the most iconic parts of Visions during poetry readings is our backdrop. It’s a design that’s redone every year in order to please the incoming group. Over the course of a few wooden panels, people would paint the word “VISIONS." The ‘o’ would often be in the design of an eye or spiral with the other letters colorfully designed to reflect whatever impulsive creativity the students saw fit. I never personally designed it, but found a deep connection. I am happy to report that it’s a technique still used to this day. I can’t say that it would be at every reading, but you couldn’t imagine Visions without those giant letters peering over the readers.
There wasn’t anything spectacular about Visions Night 2006. If anything, it was the perfect event to contrast everything against. It was a humble origins type deal. Given that I wasn’t around for the previous year, I have to believe it was also in the cafeteria and maybe drew an even smaller crowd. We had refreshments alongside magazines and t-shirts for sale. It was a whole racket and, because we put so much effort into that night, it was special to us. We didn’t have as many bells and whistles as the following year, but the success of Visions Night 2007 only matters to me in light of where things started.
Before I leave behind Sophomore year, I want to touch on a few random things. The most noteworthy is that Vann used to read this poem he had about watching Frankenhooker (1990). It was a comical, absurdist piece that mostly recalled the plot, but it felt like his way of introducing obscure b-movies to his hip art students. He also had another piece about the ridiculousness of corporations. The one line I remember went, “I like to buy the world a Coke, and sing in harmony. E-Harmony that is…” As far as I can tell, one of the things that frustrates him about later years is that he can’t be as free with his reading selections and often chooses something that is still clever, but in a more astute manner.
Then there was arguably one of the most enjoyable poets that came out of Millikan from that year. I was never close friends with him, but this guy I’ll call Kevin had this deadpan quality of observing the world. His best piece was one we published called “Roadkill” about how he’d look out the window and rate the different examples of roadkill he saw. It was a piece that resonated with me if just because of how it reflected the boredom of youth. The other piece that I wish we could publish was one he read a few times but felt like a gag piece. It was a literary deconstruction of porn titles. He was especially transfixed on the idea of how someone could come up with the title Edward Penishands.
To start shifting into Junior year, I want to make one thing clear. This is arguably the greatest year in my opinion for Visions. Everybody’s could be different, but for me the stars were aligning well enough that everything we did became some of the greatest memories I had at Millikan. While I was failing to enjoy AP English and having a mediocre go at math, Visions was about to become the little engine that could. Anthony was back and with him was a whole host of names that I feel would be essential to understanding the rise. Some had been in the group the year before, but their roles in leadership would come to fruition.
A major reason this happened was because of my choice to take Creative Writing. It was only open to Juniors and Seniors. In theory, I could’ve waited but I was eager to get back into Vann’s room and learn. To give some sense of the type of class it was, I remember his opening lecture featuring a joke about how it was essential that we listened to music in class. From there it would be prompts and assignments that went through the various forms. I felt like it was a chance for me to be very self-indulgent and try out things. We also had a notebook that we were encouraged to write out various ideas and experiments.
My approach was to treat it like satire. I tended to write in a way that felt like it was interacting with the reader. If you were looking at the pages, I would talk directly to you. However, what I was talking about was anything and everything. In my mind, it was all done with an antagonism that made everything have this snide sense of humor. It was full of characters that had various degrees of issues that I was making fun of. As someone who listened to punk music, it felt like an extension of that idea. Nothing was supposed to be taken seriously.
And yet, I’ve looked back on these notebooks in the past five years, and I find them to play alarmingly different. Maybe others still read them as antagonistic or sometimes offensive. I still am disappointed that I’ve written some problematic things. Though, to Vann’s credit, none of it was used against me.In some ways, the taboos around sensitivities weren’t as in place culturally. Then again, I was at the age where I needed to get every bad impulse out in order to evolve and appreciate the good in the world.
The most predictable subject matter was my weird grappling with religion. I was still in a phase of rejection, believing that faith was silly. I was also writing poems about how God was gay or something. One of the weird details was how a lot of my writing on queer texts was in the contexts of how others would react. It was often celebratory, but there were traces of disappointment alongside them. For as much as I didn’t identify as such at the time, I felt eager to embrace the perspective because it was “outsider.” It was this magical “other." The desire to understand it was commendable. The approach might’ve left a lot to be desired, but given how I was using it, something was bothering me. It could’ve just been that my lunch friends were very much bigots and it made me wonder why I was even hanging out with them except that I had to go somewhere.
Another theme that cropped up quite a bit was mental illness. I remember drawing splotches with red markers to symbolize blood dripping from self-harm scars. Again, it wasn’t that nuanced and maybe too celebratory. Even if I listened to The Used and My Chemical Romance, it was still an era of mocking emo kids, and I was responsible for some of it. Because of more contemporary behavior, I think my fascination with this type of injury is a tad telling and probably tragic. A lot of this reads as my subconscious telling me something that I wasn’t ready to deal with.
Even more telling was my obsession with women in difficult situations. At one point I wrote about Britney Spears’ public meltdown as a satirical infomercial about premature balding. At other points, I wrote more fictional tales of women trying to get out of abusive relationships. Given that I rarely depicted men as helpless, I still wonder what I was trying to say. I don’t personally believe I cared to ever write about mentally adjusted people. They were all in some form of helplessness, and I think it spoke to a worldview that I carried. I recognize that I was writing some things that were problematic, but given the privacy of the notebook assignment, I didn't think much of it.
As a result, I think Vann was helping me understand how to redirect my ideas into something productive. While I would take some time to find my voice, he looedk at some of my need to act out with vulgarity and tried to discover more genuine motivations. I can’t say my short story that I wrote for the class was any good. However, I did enjoy reading the other students’ work. I remember Calvin wrote a whole piece on trying to create a slipknot for a rope. I want to say it was a dark comedy piece. He liked my feedback. Again, the class had some “tortured” types and some more innocent, so occasionally Vann had to walk everybody back from their impulses. For example, he rejected the idea of a student-submitted assignment to write about a succubus.
To start moving back to Visions, I want to focus on the people who meant the most to me. Anthony was still the center of this atom and everyone gravitated around him. They were all likeminded enough to make it work.
Among the ones I was most infatuated with was Puz. He was a bit gawky, but he was kindhearted. He was also a musician for an indie rock band called We 3 Kings. They didn’t amount to much, but he once performed at a poetry reading and I just remember him singing with this aching pain that was jarring. It was because he seemed so nice that I didn’t know he had that inside him. With that said, he gave me an E.P. the band released where the members were reading magazines at the park on the cover. Puz was reading Visions. He was considering running for student counsel and I had this idea to form a coalition called Puzzies, but it didn’t go anywhere. Anthony, I want to believe, went a step further and created homemade patches for a campaign he called “Glitter Ramon for President” using glue paint.
For what it’s worth, Puz has stayed in some communication with me in the years since. It hasn’t been that prominent in the past decade, but I hope he’s doing well in life. The last I heard is that he was living in New York.
At the time of my Junior year, he was also one of our rotating poetry reading hosts. He was closer to the low energy side of the equation. On the flip side was our resident Sophomores Kendall and Paul who would become more prominent in the 2007-2008 year. For now, it was a large operation by the Seniors. Anthony was the default unless someone spoke up.
There was also Josh. He was also involved in the theater department, so he split time between us and whatever productions were going on. I regrettably never got to see him perform. He was the geeky kid who had a flair for dirty humor.
Then there’s Ramon. What’s interesting is that while he was a great asset to Visions, I think he was always insecure about his creative input. He came so close to not having a poem in the magazine until Vann helped us edit his piece into something better. With that said, he was a calm man with dreads who was always curious about what I was up to. I don’t know that anyone could say anything bad about him. With that said, the funny thing is that because of how things worked out, he didn’t have any pictures in his Senior yearbook. In a literal sense, the only evidence that he existed at Millikan that year was our magazine. He has since gone on, quite surprisingly, to be a hair stylist. He is responsible for creating the ghost fade. Unlike Puz or a handful of these names, he hasn’t reached out and talked to me much since graduation.
Because of how things played out, I’m going to refrain from discussing the Sophomore students until later. For now, I will say that we had an excellent bunch with a great cross-section of perspectives that came together at the right time. There were far many more voices than what I listed here. For example, Karie wrote this comical piece about how she dealt with a spider running around in her shower.
As usual, our early poetry readings took place in coffee shops. However, they were becoming so crowded that we caused problems with the Coffee Bean establishment. There was a desperate need to find a new venue. Given that we were also starting to feature music performances, there needed to be room for everybody to also store their equipment. The question of “where do we go?” eventually settled on the most obvious answer: back to campus.
I forget how we got to The Black Box, but I have to believe one of the students convinced Vann to ask Atwell about it. She was the theater teacher and used the room for her classes. Given that we were only going to use it after hours, it made sense. I can’t say if the first event was a runaway success, but there would come a point by the end of the year where The Black Box was a venue so popular during that alumni were coming back and and finding only standing room. Given my involvement, I was often there early setting up chairs and joking around with Puz, Josh, and Ramon about stuff.
The major difference is that because of the venue, we were offered more variety in entertainment. While there would be strict rules about how much everyone was allowed to share, the events often went two or three hours.
Some interesting things about the performances is that because we were gaining traction, we began to have higher profile performers. While there wouldn’t be anybody of too much note, we had local poets like Mike the Poet and A.K. Toney. The latter performed a call and response piece called “In a Black Man’s Mind, We Can Still Define Our Greatness,” which required us to respond “What, what” and “Who, who” depending on the line. It was so much fun. While I have since seen Mike the Poet twice more, I don’t know where A.K. Toney has gone onto.
In the music department, we were mostly dealing with student-aged groups, but it was an odd mix of people in hindsight. At one point we had a ska band that was told they couldn’t perform Sublime’s “Date Rape,” so they ended up doing Reel Big Fish’s “Trendy” that got the whole room moving. Among our claims to fame was featuring Avi Buffalo in various music projects he did prior to wherever his career took him. There was also the later addition of Allie Goertz for a few performances. I was also made aware of this weird trend of the Mid-00s where white women with acoustic guitars would perform rap songs. At different points, I heard someone do Afroman’s “Colt 45” and Flo Rida’s “Low." This wasn’t unique to Millikan or Visions, but I think it resonates because of how many covers I saw in just two years.
 |
| Avi Buffalo |
Producing that year’s magazine was straightforward in a lot of respect. However, I found myself in a position where I had to provide production design. I was told that I needed to make a page that looked like dirty, as if someone had left a soaked glass on it. At another point, I was offered the chance to draw my own artwork. Because I wasn’t professional, I didn’t have the skill to make anything that looked great. As a result, I just drew my version of Yoda that now exists next to one of my shorter poems. Because I had done it on lined paper, I thought of making that my style for the following year. I submitted a dozen pictures that were all rejected. It was only after that everyone realized they had been making fun of my work in front of me. No hard feelings. I’m a writer, anyway.
I have to wonder why art kids draw with a similar style. Even in more contemporary work that I’ve seen from Visions, they all have the same type of line shading that adds this dark, moody texture. While they have their own styles beyond that, there is something that feels like a special club in regard to technique. Maybe I should’ve been raised on less conventional cartoons. Whatever the case may be, I was left feeling inadequate.
With that said, one of the pieces I’m proudest of was in that issue. As one can guess by my comments about “transgender cheerleaders” from the previous year, I was amused enough to write a piece called “Cross Dressing” to see how it would go over. I also wrote a less entertaining poem about a pimp that, logically, didn’t make it past the first round. “Cross Dressing” got the immediate reaction I desired with Anthony saying, “We have to have it in the magazine.” Thankfully, they liked the rest of the piece beyond the title. I was commenting on celebration against a society of disappointment. To me, it was this great act of rebellion that in a Pre-“Born This Way” age felt progressive. I guess on some level I saw it as a joke on par with telling my friends “I go both ways” when they ask if I’m Tom or Thomas. With that said, Anthony liked it enough that in one of my final readings, he told me that I needed to do it.
There was also a period over spring break where a bunch of us got together to edit the magazine at a student’s house. Her name was Shannon and she was cool. I have no complaints about her and she was another one of those people who mostly worked behind the scenes. The one story I care to share is that apparently her brother was in the band Adema and she was trying to sell tickets to one of their shows. Even if I can’t say that I ever cared for the band, I do enjoy that twist on the fact that she seemed too nice and grounded to be associated with a nu-metal band.
I should also say that I was in the same grade with Dylan, who was the son of a member of T.S.O.L. and also a drummer and water polo player. He was a fun and silly kid, though we drifted apart after Freshman year.
The thing about Visions by 2007 was that we were becoming enough of a phenomenon that we were afforded the right to stunt promotions. We got together and marched in a large group across the campus as others handed out flyers and pictures were taken. I remember playing a harmonica poorly.
This ultimately lead to Visions Night and the culmination of an incredible year of the literary arts movement. Having packed The Black Box several times, we were ready to move into an outdoor venue located between the theater building and a two-story classroom building. It was going to be a whole interactive experience. There would be arts and crafts. People would paint over the Visions sign. When the readings were over, we were going to have a band called Dietra Krushev perform in an adjacent corner. We had a professor from CSULB come to read a poem about doing bellhops and end by performing said act. We had pre-show acts that included a student singing acoustic covers of rap songs. Again, my father provided equipment.
I understand that what follows is arguably even bigger and greater, but I don’t know that anything would really top Visions 2006-2007 for me. A large part of it is the group. I didn’t bring them all up, but some will factor more into the next phase. Most of the seniors would graduate and go about their lives. While I did my best to stay in contact with a lot of them on Myspace and/or Facebook, many faded. One of my biggest disappointments remains that because I was in a different grade, I couldn’t experience a 10 year reunion with them.
Before I leave this group behind, I want to touch on a final thing. Anthony was a great guy and even my dad got along with him. During the final run of that semester, it was announced that the theater department was getting rid of a couch. Anthony wanted it but had no way of transporting it to his place. Because of how things worked out, my dad offered to deliver it. Again, I hope he’s doing well.
Given that he was also the face of Visions (for me) for two years, it was going to be interesting to see how the next group took over. If logic dictated on what I had seen, 2007-2008 was going to finally be MY year. As much as I was more of a supportive tool than a direct leader, I was curious to see how things would mold under new guidance.
It should be noted that while I’m about to express a certain level of disappointment, it wasn’t like I wasn’t busy elsewhere. I was simultaneously editor-in-chief of the newspaper and working during lunch hours to get it done on time. I was also an editor in yearbook. I had more than enough to keep me busy. However, given that Visions was always the thing I was most passionate about, I wasn’t thrilled that 2007-2008 was the year that it went from being directed by The Seniors to now the work of The Juniors.
The Juniors who worked alongside me in 2006-2007 weren’t the most plentiful. Some were flakes while others were performers. There wasn’t enough concern to be at the forefront of the next stage. Even as I showed up and did my work, I realized that this was going to be The Juniors year. They had been there as Sophomores and did some amazing work in their small capacity. However, it does feel like a certain rite of passage was lost when it became clear that I was demoted to a supporting player. Ironically, it may have been in large part because I wasn’t taking Creative Writing and thus didn’t have as much direct access to the incoming news.
I would like to touch on a few people that were significant in this journey. Again, I want to specify that they were all nice to me and I think did excellent work. I firmly believe that Visions as a program is supposed to change every year and reflect what the students involved want to do. Maybe it didn’t reflect my potential inquiries, but I still had work published and was a respected member at the readings. At no point do I feel this was done out of personal disrespect towards myself.
It’s hard to separate Kendall and Paul when talking about Visions. They both had eccentric personalities and played well off each other. Kendall had a warmth to her that shined when she was passionate. Paul was a bit more of a goofball with an occasional dark side. Together, they make sense as Visions leaders. If judging solely on how they hosted readings, they brought a life to things that was different from the moody art student vibes we were coming off. There was more comedy and diversity in what they welcomed to the table.
There’s also Senay. I’m unsure if he took issue with me, but it felt like we ran in different circles. Still, I liked what he was doing. He was aspiring to be a conscious backpack rapper not unlike A Tribe Called Quest. Even if his productions were often lo-fi, he was evolving month to month and producing something that spoke to him. He was still finding his rhythm as a performer by the time I left, but he would eventually release music under the name The Natives. I’m unsure if he still performs, but he has become more socially conscious, and I’ve heard that he does a lot of work for his community.
Another person was Anais. She’s one of the people who wasn’t directly involved with Visions, but became friends with me because of it. She sent out a friend request on Myspace and slowly we began talking. I’ve met her a few times in person and she is a quiet and friendly woman. Like most people, we lost contact after awhile, but she is one of the few that I’m still friends with on Facebook.
Next up is Garrett, who also found his own indirect way of befriending me. Even if I would say that every student in Visions had their own distinct personality, he filled the gap left by Anthony in every way but leadership. He was the art kid who was heavily into Nirvana. He had purchased the Kurt Cobain diaries and was trying to find clues in the meaning. I first met him when Visions had a random offshoot reading at the local Barnes & Noble. He flagged me down and we just began talking about life.
It’s interesting how many people would befriend me because of Visions that I first didn’t talk to in person. I think it just spoke to my general charisma, whatever that means. A lot of my performances had some comical build-up because I had no idea how to start reading right away. I had to share some perspective of where it came from, get a few laughs, then hope I could hold the paper still enough as I read. Now and then I ran across the front row and got high fives from everybody. It was very impulse driven because I had no idea what I was doing and needed to build to something that was otherwise very intimate. Some would come up to me afterwards and compliment my work, but Garrett and Anais specifically were both from the Myspace persuasion. I’m sure there’s more, especially since we were tight knit, but they stood out for how much I bonded with them.
If there’s one Junior that I will forever admire and wish that I could still talk to, it’s Angela. She stood out because she had black hair, save for her bangs which were often blue. Her work could be described as feminist and her Myspace biography once featured the quote “Misogyny is a bitch, yo.” Like everyone else, she had her own artistic style and liked to play music like M.I.A. and Le Tigre. One of my favorite memories of her is that she once apologized to her teacher for not doing homework because, “I’m sorry, but DLST is kicking my ass.” She submitted work to Visions but I think she was often too shy to actually share at readings. She was on the visual side of things.
I don’t know if she’s still producing work, but I have found evidence that she had some type of career after graduation. As far as I can recall, she worked with Kendall though I can’t be too sure.
While I could go on and on about these different students, I feel like things would be running too long. I mostly bring them up because it was the mundane moments that really shined the brightest for us. We were all creative majors hanging out just trying to make sense of life and funneling it through this magazine. My big contribution for that year was a poem about following your dreams. I took the prompt literally and made it about students sleeping in class. Some would argue it’s among my more renowned pieces from that time.
I need to touch on what Kendall and Paul’s contribution was to the overall history of Visions. As mentioned before, we were expanding to include poetry, art projects, and musicians. The idea was to not only have Visions Night, but also another evening. I forget what it was called, but this was move to an area by the football field. We had a full stage installed with speakers where bands would play and performers would do their bit. I don’t think it could be perceived as a conventional Visions event, especially since it was less about poetry than the other things. Still, it provided a variety of things to do and it was considerably packed, so good on them for coming up with an event that expanded the concept of Visions.
If one thing hurt more than anything, it was that because I was a Senior who wasn’t directly involved with any of the Creative Writing classes, I wasn’t aware of what needed to be done. It was very much a first come first serve situation and often by the time I got there, we were several servings down. I still remember showing up after school during the editing phase and having Vann tell me that my help wasn’t needed. It should be said that he didn’t say this maliciously, but more that everyone had already done it. As a result, I don’t feel like I contributed to the final Visions magazine of my tenure.
Of course I had a submission that I’m very proud of. However, I was not connecting with the layout or a lot of the other decisions. It was unfamiliar. Even if it holds a lot of greatness, I found it discouraging to think that I wasn’t involved to the extent I had even during my Sophomore year when I was more timid to do anything.
The one upside is that the final Visions Night ended with something of a reprieve. While it was clear that this was more a continuation for The Juniors, there was a little time dedicated to the few Seniors who had stuck around. Given that I had been there three years and knew Vann during all four, it felt important for him to say something. During his speech, he highlighted that I was funny and that I provided a nice perspective on the world. All in all, I think it was a great sendoff for all involved. I do miss the group despite grievances.
A random detail I want to include here is that the last time I saw Kendall and Paul were both when I was working as a courtesy clerk at Stater Bros. The funny thing is that neither were in the same manner. Paul had grown his hair out and was walking shirtless through the parking lot seeming a bit stoned. Kendall meanwhile seemed to be doing well. She had the awkward incident of still looking young enough that when she bought cigarettes, she was not only carded but questioned if it was a real I.D. card. Knowing her, she was the right age, but it was such an odd way to see her again.
I think that my post-high school days with Visions were not the most delightful sendoff. I think by 2009, I was experiencing a mix of depression and burnout. It was natural given that a lot of the main group had fallen off. However, I feel like I should’ve been more respectful because even knowing the “keep it PG-13" rules, I decided to write a lengthy piece called “Fuckall” that was about not caring. I don’t think it was directed at Visions, but more my opinion of the world. I felt like I left that evening without much fanfare, and I think it spoke to my need to find something else to fill my time.
I wish that I left Visions under better terms. Then again, I don’t think anyone really took the piece maliciously. At most, it was probably confusion. I was the upbeat person and was clearly going through something. Then again, 2009 was when it was all settling in that my friend group was radically changing and the people who meant a lot to me from the previous years had been fading away. The fear of abandonment was overwhelming and I wasn’t ready to fully process what was going on both to and because of myself.
With that said, I have pieced together the story of Visions from my sister who was more attuned to action up through the middle 2010s. From what I gather, the program became more and more music-focused and suddenly poetry was almost phased out. She said that Vann took issue with how the students were running it, and I could imagine. It allegedly fizzled out by the mid-2010s and was only resurrected following the pandemic. Vann’s enthusiasm over the program in 2021 was a sight to behold because it really did feel like he believed they would make something.
To their credit, I am heartwarmed to know that they are continuing Visions with their own spin. It’s a far cry from where we were, but they are doing their best to rebuild things and create something that is personal to them. They sell their own merchandise now instead of having a unified product. As much as I miss the magazine, it’s nice to see them doing something that is encouraging of their creative lives. It definitely says as much as whatever we were doing.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen them since 2022. For different reasons, I’ve mostly been an online supporter and have enjoyed seeing their updates. I may be one of the few alumnus who actually shows up anymore, but I like to think it shows some following and dedication to the arts. I may not quite be that mentor and supporter that I want to be, but I can try to work on that. I always feel nervous because I think of Visions as the students’ program. Giving them advice is difficult because I don’t want them to create it in my image. I want it to be their thing. I’ve been away too long to know what that even means. Luckily, it’s something that still makes me smile.
The only thing that doesn’t make me smile? The strange passing of time revealed a sad truth. In 2021 when I visited, I got a legacy welcome that felt good. However, it made me realize that I was old. Most of the people in that room weren’t even alive when I was a Freshman in high school. It was bizarre to think. It might be even more true now. At least I have a few years before it’ll mean everyone wasn’t alive when I graduated.
But I feel like I’m getting too far ahead of myself. I have been focusing on tangents in order to fill in some gaps. After some delay, I feel it’s time to put this high school thing to bed. At long last, the next entry will focus on my senior year in all of its glory.
Comments
Post a Comment