Tones on Tail, "Go!" / Ten years gone, Part 6

Recently, I caught the final 20 minutes or so of Grosse Pointe Blank on TBS. As John Cusack and Minnie Driver leave the gym for a little hanky panky in the nurse’s office, the very beginning of “Go!” by Tones on Tail is played. It tickled me, so I tracked down the tune on YouTube and thought I would post it.

In Grosse Pointe Blank, Cusack plays a professional assassin who returns to his hometown to attend his 10-year high school reunion. It has been a while since I saw the whole thing, but somehow he was romantically involved with Minnie Driver’s character back in the day (lucky him) and the two being to make amends. The movie also features a slew of other Cusacks, as most John Cusack movies do. Anyway, at a certain point it struck me: I am now the same age as the characters and can relate to the emotional tug-o-war regarding my own 10-year class reunion.

“Goddamn,” I thought. “I’m old.”

In spite of a few setbacks, and the threat of cancellation, the City High Class of 2001 10-year reunion is, in the words of the main organizer, “on!!!!” From what I can tell, organizing it has been a labor of love for her and a few classmates, and I commend them for their effort. They volunteered their time after our senior year president apparently refused to do it. (Organizing reunions is, I guess, an unspoken duty of the class president.) The reunion is scheduled for November 26, and ever since plans were first posted on our class Facebook page (“We have a class Facebook page?” was my reaction when Mervgotti mentioned it) I have wondered whether or not to attend.

Though Bobblehead was on the fence, and still may be, the decision was not so difficult for the likes of Mervgotti and Sweet Meat; both responded to the Facebook invitation with a resolute “Not Attending.” I am unsure why Sweet Meat was so decisive, but Mervgotti had major qualms with the location: the First Avenue Club. “That’s so gay,” he said. Plus, he wonders why we even need to have a 10-year reunion; he believes none of us have changed all that much. When relaying his reasoning to my mom, she promptly offered this opinion: “[Mervgotti] doesn’t want to go because he’s a loser. He hasn’t done anything with his life.” I cannot argue with that.

Because I have yet to respond (negatively, at least), the reunion is still listed among my Facebook events, and every now and then I have checked the invitation response lists. I remember most of those listed. Some were cool, others were not. I may dislike a couple, but do not have a major beef with any. Regardless of what I think or how I remember them, they are my classmates — people with whom I have a certain kinship with since we grew up and went to school together. And that is the reason I feel compelled to go. It is my class, my people.

All the corniness and stereotypical high school reunion whatnot aside, I honestly would like to see a number of people, especially those from the paper. I lost touch with almost all of them, and I have not seen most since graduation. They are obviously the people I feel most connected to since we worked together and shared the unique and quite exclusive experience of Newslab. I also knew a lot of people outside of my main crew of best friends, and it would be cool to see them, too. But, as far as I know, almost none of them are going.

So far, only 49 plan to attend. (Given the fact there were 389 (?) in our class, it will be a pretty thin crowd.) I knew them in that “I saw you every day in school and had a couple classes with you” way, but not in the “Yoooo! Holy shit! What’s up?!” way. Of course, that should not prevent me from going. But it is. To me, the reunion feels like one of those things I would prefer attending with my best friends. We could go together, mingle as we saw fit, and have a core group of people to fall back on in case things got awkward. (It is, I will admit, one of those occasions when having a girlfriend would be nice. Not that that would be the only reason I would have a girlfriend, of course. She would be a friend and sexual partner — and an ideal confidant at, say, my high school reunion. “Hey, [nickname tailored to her, because I do not want to get into the cliché trap of calling someone ‘Hon’ or ‘Honey’]. I’m getting a little worn out, so let’s sneak off over here and have a couple drinks.”) I do not feel like going there alone to mingle, and my mom is admonishing me for it. She wants me to go, badly. “You should go,” she told me. “It’ll be fun.” But that is just my mom. She is the reunion organizer type. Plus, her high school was probably about as big as the ol’ Class of 2001, so the dynamic is different.

Yes, I loved high school, and my reluctance to attend the reunion is a little contradictory. It is, after all, “my class, my people.” Part of it, of course, is me being me — the timid Quiet Man — and another part is the lack of a personal draw. Since I returned to IC and hang out with my crew often, there is no homecoming appeal, either. I just do not feel like going.

Truthfully, though, there is no reason for me not to go. Any kind of excuse I can come up with is baseless. It only lasts for three hours. Plus, there is free beer. If nothing else, I can try drinking the ticket price ($25) worth of free beer.

Hmm. Hmm. For a while I thought I was off the fence and on the “not attending” side, but now I think I am back on it.