So Saturday morning I watched High School Musical at the El Capitan…

And look, before I lose all credibility as a passionate connoiseur and enthusiast of all things gore and sleaze, let me back up…

I suppose it all started that day a couple years back when I read that Billboard’s 1 album was the soundtrack to something I had never heard of called High School Musical.  Now even though I don’t watch too many mainstream movies, particularly ones with a teen cast (unless said tweens are being picked off ritualistically by a hideously deranged and monstrously deformed hillbilly), I know what movies are playing at my local multiplex.  How did this movie slip past me?  Then I find out it was a Disney Channel movie.  A made-for-TV movie has the 1 selling album?  Had that ever even happened?

It was another one of those moments where I felt I’d completely lost touch with the mainstream.  And that’s no tragedy, mind you, but it’s still stunning sometimes to realize there are songs out there that millions of people are crazy about that you have never heard, and what’s more, have never heard of.  I know Mariah Carey has new shit out - I haven’t heard it, but I know it exists.   This High School Musical movie, on the other hand, had totally slipped right by me.

Flash forward a year, when I took my little sister Gaby to Disneyland and the whole place had High School Musical 2 fever, and our march down California Adventure was interrupted by an insane makeshift pep rally featuring some basketball-playing dancers (most of whom I guarantee you had never touched a basketball before in their lives) and some spazzed out cheerleaders.  Gaby, who at this point was 11, stares the whole thing down with silent contempt.  I want to join in with some crass comments, but I mustn’t encourage her already developing bitchy side - it meant enough to me that she was disturbed by the whole scene, particularly the cheering onlookers who looked like they might implode with sheer rapture at any moment.  In Gaby’s face I saw a glint of recognition that implied having to deal with girls like this every day at school. She finally grabbed my hand and started forcing her way through the crowd, desperate to get to Grizzly River Run and wash herself of this moment.  As happens often, I was proud to be her brother.

Flash forward to last Tuesday.  Still recovering from the Sick Girl screening, and planning to do little else on the weekend than see Radiohead and perhaps catch an act or two at Sunset Junction, I get an invitation from my friend at Disney to HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL PEPRALLY!, an invite-only event at the El Capitan, where…get this…BOTH High School Musical films would be screened…in sing-along versions (on-screen lyrics)…with sneak scenes from the upcoming 3rd film…AND surprise cast members!  And my gut reaction is, of course, an unfavorable one.

…but then a sick thing happened.  A strange, sick thing.  Some might call it masochistic.  In retrospect, I wouldn’t have been surprised if some might have perceived it as a cry for help and had me institutionalized…  But I took my friend up on the invite.  He thought I was fucking with him - and maybe I was, but I meant it.  I would go.  And I would go the right way.

Here was my plan: pick up a like-minded scoundrel.  Pick up a bottle of whiskey. Drink with steadfast forcefulness the entire bottle of whiskey prior to entering the theater.  Sit amongst the throngs, in the thick of it, in The Shit, with no chance of retreat.  Try to regress; try to process; let the mind do what it needs to do to protect, to survive.  Walk out alive, and tell the world.

Step one was the selection of the scoundrel.

You see, it had to be Alicia.  Why?  Well, for one, the first two people I asked were chicken-shit.  Or that is to say, they didn’t share my vision.  And in Eric’s defense, he doesn’t drink or do drugs.  No armor, then, against the onslaught.  I knew Alicia would be up for this.  She is a reliable comrade in wicked times.

First, we needed sustenance.

Why did I take a picture of the Jack in the Box lady?  Because I was in a daffy mood, dammit.  That, and I loved her name.  Her name is Achy.  Go ahead - check out the name tag.  It says Achy.

With food came conveniently large drinking containers.  We dumped half the bottle of Jack into Alicia’s cup, swished it around with Coke, and hid the bottle in her purse.  No doubt El Capitan’s security would be checking purses, so we wrapped the bottle tightly in black plastic.  It would take an asshole to tear through the plastic and to reveal its contents.  Then again, you never know with Disney security.  The suspense was on.

So we get to the theater, and everyone’s in white and red.  Seems there is a basketball team at the heart of this film series - the Wildcats - and it seems their colors are white and red.  Who knew?   Anyway, never give two drunken scoundrels a set of pom poms.

Especially when there are children around…

The security guards take a leisurely glance at the contents in Alicia’s purse, so we are set loose inside the theater and immediately begin taking the piss out of everything and everyone around us.  Which is immature, to be sure, but we had a plan, and we were sticking to it.

Our plan to sit in the thick of things was thwarted pretty much as soon as we entered the place, and the usher proudly announced that the only remaining seats were in the balcony.  So we stumbled up the stairs and selected two  choice seats towards the center top where we perched like snipers, spewing our childish venom onto the unknowing heads of the children below.  Almost immediately we found our first victim - a little blonde girl at the front of the balcony, who couldn’t have been older than 10, gyrating rhythmically to the soundtrack blaring through the speakers, her hands clenched to the bar in front of her as she hurled her hips around like a stripper, her father beside her clapping along lovingly.  We all laugh at Sparkle Motion because we recognize the absurdity and cultural hypocricy of the instituionalized dressing up of little girls into tight sequined spandex to engage in choreographed air-humping - here it was alive and well, in the form of a near-toddler who was putting the girls at Jumbo’s to shame with each cringe-inducing pelvic thrust.

Alicia and I soon discovered that she was not alone - across the landscape we saw dozens of little girls on their feet, waving their fists in the air and grinding at the space around them, shrieking indecipherably at the screen.  This thing hadn’t even started yet.  The preshow hadn’t even started yet.  These girls were already keyed up on candy and an as-yet-uncategorized lust for Zac Efron, they were hungry and ready for anything Disney had cooked up for them in their spoon.

When this thing starts, thought I, it’s going to get very, very loud in here…

And sure enough, when the MC took the stage, the place went absolute apeshit. Everyone screamed.  Everyone.  The ushers screamed.  Hell, even Alicia and I screamed.

And why not?  This was Rome, and we were in it.  We’d signed up.  We were part of this thing now.  Complicit.  This was our Sin too.  Our drunken defense would be no match for these ravenous little terrors - they’d smell our fear and let loose on us, devouring us in a haze of pink and white.  It was too late to turn back.  We swallowed our horror, and chased it down with the rest of the whiskey.

For the next 90 minutes, we sat through the first High School Musical.  And may I say, it wasn’t a total disaster.  It wasn’t.  Was the music any good?  Not really, though I give them props for taking a cue from Bjork on one number and incorporating the squeak of sneakers on a basketball court into the rhythm section.  The film was a simple, innocuous story about a basketball playing dude who meets an intellectual chick, and the internal and external forces that wedge against and between them when they try to sign up for the tituar high school musical.  Pretty tame and simple stuff.  I try to be fair when it comes to movies - this wasn’t a complete waste of space and time.  No doubt perfect fodder for a sheltered latchkey kid.

A ten minute intermission between movies, and my comrade was getting antsy.  Very antsy.  She needed to get the hell out.  I encouraged her to stick it out. “We’ve made it this far, dammit!  We can make it!  Just one more!!” It wasn’t that I needed to see “how things turned out” in the sequel mind you - Part One saw the lovebirds get together and land the musical, the bullies ultimately play nice, the team win the big game, etc etc etc - I was just resolved finish this crazed journey.  To sneak out early seemed like a retreat I was not willing to make, despite the fact that Alicia was holding out the empty bottle of whiskey with the sad eyes of a dying poodle, shaking the last drop out onto her tongue and lamenting that we need more fucking booze! if she was to make it through one more ninety minute helping of saccharine taffy.  I felt her pain on that one - the cruel numbing grip of sobriety was sneaking up on me too.

I was starting to consider a run to the liquor store when the MC came back out to announce the start of Part Two.  And suddenly the words weren’t as humorous, the vibe was more painful than gleefully sinister, the screams were no longer entertaining - it was all just noise.  Lots and lots of noise.  And I was gripped with a sudden fear - would I be able to sit through High School Musical 2 while sober?  Or worse, while sobering up?  That would be the next adventure, I thought - that would be the next trial.  Part One drunk, Part Two sober - I’d brave them out and weigh each experience against the other.

Not so.  Three minutes into High School Musical 2, Alicia and I were on our feet and charging like madmen for the exit.  We’d had enough - almost at the exact same time, we’d had enough.  The second film opened with what amounts to a schoolwide musical number - everyone fucking person on screen erupting into song and charging towards the camera.  I knew immediately what Part Two was out to do - capitalize on the success of Part One with a massively-scaled regurgitation.  I could feel it - this would be the one that destroys me.  The next two hours would deliver the blunt throw that would forever dent my soul.  Alicia must’ve felt it to - we were off our seats and on the street in 10 seconds flat.

We didn’t have much to say to each other on the drive home.  Alicia sobbed uncontrollably.

No seriously, we had a blast!  What is life worth if not for such adventures - we do enough shit we already know we’re going to totally get into and dig, why not throw some crazy, uncharacteristic shit into the mix?   Man learns from such endeavors.  What did I learn from this?  America is systematically turning its little girls into a nation of whores.  That seems harsh - I’m sure it’s not all true - but mostly true.  Don’t think so?  Check out the new line of High School Musical kiddie underwear…