To Chuck Klosterman

When pressed to sponsor something, I chose “guitar club,” because I openly liked the fact that I never had to do anything for the club. The first practice I half-way attempted to find guitar tabs for Television songs, but when the kids insisted they wanted to figure it out for themselves I didn’t argue. But secretly, I wanted to be the Cool Teacher, the one who knew what a “chord” is and ignored them as much as is legally possible. I wanted to impress them with the wonders of “laissez-faire”.

The point of the club was to “foster social interaction between disparate factions within the student body,” and I was successful. In fact, my club members actually became friends, and behind my back while they were supposed to be practicing guitar and discussing how cool I am, they decided that practicing at the house next door would be better than practicing at school.

I was handed their letter of resignation yesterday. Effective immediately.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, because after all I had been teaching them all the positive things that happen when people are let be- friends, fun, talking about how cool I am. But I am in pain. And it’s because I was influenced by the genius of Kurt Cobain when he rebelled against the Republican parent generation that suffocated its children with rules. Ironically, Kurt Cobain influenced my little band to start playing guitar.

So there it is. Television was in the early punk scene, which later influenced the grunge scene that Cobain headed. My students wish they were Kurt, and I liked him, too. So he unintentionally started the band, and broke it up.

Except it’s not broken up, it’s next door, and I am the only teacher in the history of the school to have been dumped by her club.