Never ones to lag behind in the
quest to indoctrinate America's adorable ragamuffins into the
fun and rewarding world of cut-throat insularity, we here at the
Ludic Log have stayed up late into the night to craft a new and
expanded version of our popular monograph, "The Ludic Syndicate
Guide to Precollegiate Social Fascism". Choose today, and
stay forever!
Type 1: "Andromod Zombie"
FEATURES: Geometrically improbable hairstyle; recycled black 1970s-vintage "big collar" disco shirt; half-empty bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.
PLUS: Pre-dressed for frequent funeral attendance; shallow, impressionable hotties inexplicably attracted to the "freshly dead" look; constant torpor a convenient mask for drug addiction.
MINUS: Expensive hair cement eats into drug money; depressants are aptly named; novelty of fucking other people who resemble corpses wears off quickly.
Type 2: "Skinhead Motherfucker"
FEATURES: Obnoxious, unlikely racial rhetoric adorning otherwise useless textbook; Nazi parephenalia 'appropriated' from army surplus stores and antique shops; ominously laced combat boots.
PLUS: Spared the workaday tedium of popularity, acceptance, and likability; get your picture on the front page every time you and two of your friends walk down Main Street; possibility of getting to punch Geraldo Rivera.
MINUS: Winos developing cranky, uncooperative attitude; Geraldo Rivera has hired intimidating bodyguards; degenerate breeding habits of mud races have caused them to multiply substantially, leading to displeasing dearth of "six of us, one of them" scenarios.
Type 3: "Punkus Dinosauricus"
FEATURES: Death-oriented costume jewelry; fatigue induced by narcotics and self-righteousness; abortive Mohawk attempt.
PLUS: ability to frighten the timid; upsurge in racist skins provides easy sense of superiority; delicious frisson provided by being member of closed-minded clique that claims to oppose closed-minded cliqueishness.
MINUS: Idolizing dead musicians puts you in uncomfortable company with fans of classical music and classic rock; often arrested; must learn the specifics of venereal disease without the aid of colorful Red Cross pamphlets.
Type 4: "Young Republican"
FEATURES: Bullet-shaped head containing bullet-oriented brain; membership to Esquire's "Tie Width of the Month" club; '60s-throwback buzz cuts and Mary Tyler Moore flips.
PLUS: Will end up rich; will end up powerful; will end up getting laid frequently.
MINUS: Will die anyway; may have to work in office building with disturbing proximity to city's shiftless, olfactorily unpleasant homeless population; people will make fun of you your entire life.
Type 5: "Big Jock"
FEATURES: Barely submerged longing to crush and eat smaller organisms; excess body mass; symbolic head protector.
PLUS: Can annihilate anything in your path; will have easier time getting into college than 200-IQ math nerd; brain capacity too low to register concern over abstract problems.
MINUS: "No-pass, no-play" laws cannot be physically destroyed; often unsure if you are being insulted; must work at McDonalds forever if your knee goes out.
Type 6: "Submissive Dork"
FEATURES: Stereotypical but surprisingly common Coke-bottle glasses, too-old, too-tight turtleneck sweater festooned with food stains; repressed sex drive released in unproductive manner.
PLUS: Saved the pain of heartbreak by never having a romantic relationship; social standing so low as to be unaffected by idiosyncratic lifestyle choices such as wearing a Captain Kirk tunic to the Spring Dance; in unlikely event of an alien landing at your school, extraterrestrials will want to talk to someone who can formulate complete sentences.
MINUS: Intelligence and creativity count for shit in high school; intelligence and creativity are pretty undervalued after high school, too; the death ray may have irredeemable design flaws.
Type 7: "Party Dude"
FEATURES: Cavalier disregard for personal hygeine; tour shirt featuring band that broke up before you were born; inability to develop enthusiasm at pep rallies.
PLUS: Metal-induced tinnitis blocks out useless teacher verbiage; cigarettes, beer and heroin never get old; world-class apathy might be mistaken for mental or physical illness, leading to the prescription of entertaining drugs.
MINUS: Bring vibrant new meaning to the word "incoherent"; best career choice is as guinea pig to pharmaceutical concern; cancer is real, and not something people made up just to bum you out.
Type 8: "Violencia Gangbanger"
FEATURES: Fascinating array of home protection devices in trunk of car; monthly income far in excess of that of school faculty; purportedly sport-related apparel.
PLUS: Will have enough money to own a Burger King franchise by your sophomore year; friends are willing to machine-gun total strangers to death on your behalf; can laugh derisively at Junior Acheivement meetings.
MINUS: Memorizing laborious dress codes and hand signals is almost as hard as doing homework; total strangers are willing to machine-gun you to death on behalf of their friends; police are unlikely to believe you carry two beepers because you are a brilliant brain surgeon.
Type 9: "Scary Poet"
FEATURES: Conspicuously absent peer group; small black or floral notebook filled with illegible meanderings written in red fountain pen; hazy aura of patchouli oil and foreign cigarette smoke.
PLUS: Shallowness and vapidity are often overlooked if concealed in cryptic incomprehensibility; parents are very indulgent if they think you might kill yourself; plenty of time to yourself.
MINUS: Poetry does not increase in quality the more pain you experience; suicide fears of parents often well-founded; after you die, people will someday laugh about the shitty poems you wrote that got into the yearbook.
Type 10: "Junior Psycho"
FEATURES: Hunting cap with big earflaps; collection of animal parts wholly unrelated to biology class project; surrounded by 20-foot radius of no people.
PLUS: Better chance of being famous than other kids in your class; early introduction to the joys of independence; sketches, doodles, angry letters, death lists and Satanic graffiti from your notebook may fetch thousands of dollars after your trial.
MINUS: Reincarnation a scary possibility; voices in head, not being liable or subject to arrest, may be more fallible than you think; all the best ones are college girls.
Quote of the Day: "No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices." (Edward R. Murrow)