Fandom High School

"Short and sweet today, guys. I wrote a test and now you have to take it. And then we can all enjoy a couple weeks off."

Jim distributed the tests, sat down, and broke out a book about the history of basketball to read.

[OOC: Test is in the comments!]

"Last time we talked about Abraham Lincoln before he was President. This time we're going to fast forward a bit and get to a bit of weirdness after he died," Jim said.

"Counterfeiting money was apparently big business during and after the Civil War. One of the biggest counterfeiting rings was based in Illinois, Lincoln's home state and also where he was buried. So when one of their best men got arrested, it was bad for business and real money stopped coming in. So the gang's leader, a guy named Big Jim Kennally, figured they'd make up for the lost business by stealing Lincoln's corpse and ransoming it for two hundred thousand dollars and the release of their guy in prison. Completely reasonable, right?"

( The plot to rob Abe's plot. )

Jim had the TV on when people entered the room today. That could only mean one thing: it was another movie day.

"Morning. Today we're going to watch a movie all about how the Founding Fathers sang all the time. It's called 1776, and it's not really funny the way I normally go for, but come on, a singing Continental Congress? That's kind of amusing." He couldn't help but notice that one of his students seemed a little too amused by this description, so he had to take a shot in the dark. "Rose, have you seen this before?"

...Oh shit. "No?" Rose tried. "I've never seen it before ever?" She was terrible at lying. Terrible.

"Wow," Jim said. "That's really unconvincing. Go ahead, tell the class what you know about the movie."

Rose glared at him. Glared so much. "Fine. First I gotta say that my best friend totally forced me to watch this movie, and that's the only reason I know about it." Now that that was out of the way. "So this is awesome. I mean, they all sing, and that's pretty weird, but everyone hates John Adams cause he's a pushy bitch, but he's the only one who's got enough balls to want to declare independence so he sings about it." She paused. "And it's not like girly singing. Except when his wife sings."

"So he finally gets people to agree that they want to screw over England too cause crap, who wouldn't want to screw over England? And they all sing about it and worry that George Washington's army is going to get its ass kicked by the British. Which - spoiler alert - doesn't happen. He does get it on with Hamilton though, but, um, yeah, that's not part of the movie."

"The total highlight of the thing though is when Adams and Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson - and oooh, he's kinda hot actually, if you like red headed guys - all get together to argue over who's going to actually write the Declaration. Cause no one really wants to. Which, okay, is stupid since they're all AT THE CONVENTION to do something like that. But Adams is all "I can't write it! No one likes me!" And everyone agrees. So they finally make Jefferson write it except he's all cockblocked cause his wife is back in Virginia and he kinda sucks for a while. Not dirty."

"And then the entire story is saved because Adams and Franklin import Jefferson's wife so he can get laid. I'm not even making it up." She paused. "See, we always figured with all those guys there, they should've just taken care of it themselves cause some of that Adams/Jefferson dialogue is kinda sexy, but I guess the musical people thought his wife should be in there." Rose looked over at Jim. "Is that good?"

Jim gave an entertained smirk to the camera before answering, "Even better than I hoped. Everyone, be sure to look for all the manlove Rose noticed as you watch it."

And with that, Jim started the movie.

"If you're from this planet, you probably have an idea what Stonehenge is. If you're not, then it's this," Jim said, pointing at a picture taped to the board. "It's a bunch of stones put in very precise circles back in prehistoric times, so we don't really have a good idea how they moved the stones at all, let alone putting them together the way they did."

"Anyway, it's one of those big world mysteries that a lot of people speculate about and so it's a popular tourist thing. But England hasn't always owned it. Up until 1918, Stonehenge was privately owned. King Henry the Eighth gave it to somebody, who gave it to somebody else, and they gave it to somebody else, and so on until it ended up being auctioned off in 1915. And that's when a man named Sir Cecil Chubb bought it at auction as a present for his wife."

"The fact that he donated it to the government three years later probably tells you everything you need to know about how well that present went over."

"And this brings up three obvious questions: Why would somebody buy a five thousand year old circle of stones for his wife? What's the weirdest thing you've ever bought for a significant other that you can talk about in polite company? And what landmark would you give someone if you could?"

When the students walked into the classroom today, they'd probably notice that the lights were off and there was a TV on. "Originally we were going to have a real class but, well, it's the last day before break. So, yeah."

"Anyway, we're going to stick with the 'movies that are so horribly inaccurate that it's really funny' theme. So sit back and enjoy The Jingoist. And just remember, the American Revolution wasn't actually like this. If you want to know what it was really like, either hit up Wikipedia or take a serious history class sometime."

When everyone was in the room, Jim walked over to close the door. "Morning. I hope you all had fun with your teddy bears this week. If you haven't handwavily gotten a picture of them doing something cool yet, make sure you do that before the end of the day. It's a very serious assignment and could have a huge impact on your grade." Jim wasn't sure he could say that any more sarcastically.

"Anyway, this week we're going to be watching a movie. Amadeus is the story of the great composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, his constant childlike behavior, public displays of a really crude sense of humor, and his hacky, evil, bitter, murderous rival Antonio Salieri. The only problem is, most of what happens in the movie is completely untrue. And that's fine; it's based on a play that was only loosely based on Mozart's life and neither version of Amadeus really cared about historical accuracy. The problem - and the reason why it's funny - is that a lot of people try to take it as the truth."

"Here's something I got from a completely reputable source on the internet," Jim said, handing out a handout printed from a Geocities page. "It goes into a little more detail about what's wrong than I'm going to because it's movie time." Jim flicked the lights off and turned to the camera guy. "No bootlegging."

When the students walked in today, a song was playing playing on Jim's laptop. He wasn't offering an explanation. He just greeted people as they came in.

When the bell rang, Jim smiled, paused the song, and started his lecture. "Let's talk about the Vice President. And let's be completely honest... Does anyone here really know what the Vice President does? I don't. And that's why I'm not qualified to teach any kind of history class but this one. I know they have some tiebreaking powers in the Senate. And take over if the President dies, but day to day work? No clue. And that's why history forgets most of them unless they became President, were killed in a duel, or were just really, really stupid."

"But there was this one guy, Vice President Charles Dawes. He was the VP during Calvin Coolidge's elected term in office. But before that he spent some time as a composer, completely self-taught. In 1912, he wrote a piece called 'Melody in A Minor,' which is a really boring name if you ask me. But the music was pretty good and everyone likes to give people theme songs. So, when he started really making a name for himself in politics, any place he went, he was usually greeted by some band playing 'Melody in A Minor' when he showed up."

"And you know how high school bands keep playing oldies for no real good reason that anyone who isn't in band can figure out? The same thing happened with 'Melody in A Minor.' The music stayed pretty popular with bandleaders for years, but then a songwriter named Carl Sigman decided to turn it into a pop song called 'It's All In the Game.' A bunch of artists recorded versions of it in 1951, but a version by Tommy Edwards was remastered in 1958 and that ended up at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks."

"For the record, that's the song you heard when you walked in."

"Since Dawes wrote the original music, he got a co-writer credit on the song, making him the only Vice President in American history to have a #1 single."

"So, two discussion questions today that I think you'll enjoy. First, what musician with a number one single under their belt would you most like to see as Vice President, keeping in mind that you probably have no clue what the VP does? Second, if you could recruit any Vice Presidents, living or dead, to form an all-star band, who plays what instruments and what would their name be? The best suggestion gets my solemn vow that if we ever have an invasion of former VPs, I'll try to get them to play a concert. And if I can manage that, you're absolutely getting backstage passes."