King 5's War on Fun

I’m not sure how many people read Rick Pierce’s blog. It’s pretty funny, though comparisons to “Nick Burns: Your Company’s Computer Guy” are totally without merit. 

Anyway, he’s got a link up to a King 5 news report on alcohol energy drinks, apparently spawned from a conversation on our own forum about a Centralia girl who may or may not have had one before trying to go to a dance (for the seventh year in a row no one asked me, so I missed it). 

The King 5 report is a joke. “Oh my God, kids are drinking alcoholic energy drinks!” is the basic message.

It’s hard to believe there’s nothing better to cover than the fact that you can buy caffeine and booze in the same container. 

Keep in mind this is nothing new. Sparks, the original caffeinated malt liquor, has been on sale since I was 19 (when I saw some older kids drinking it). There’s been a slew of rip-offs over the years, including Tilt and the deliberately named Rock Star 21. Today you can even find schnapps with bite. 

The point of King 5’s piece was that adults can’t tell the difference between regular energy drinks and booze-infused party fuel, even though when cashiers ring up the purchase the “Check ID” light comes on. And even though the cans with alcohol have the percentage of alcohol in fairly large letters, as a warning for cashiers and a selling point. 

It seems like King 5 was just fishing for a story and came up with something that should have been aired, say, five years ago. It’s sort of like me fishing for a blog topic and coming up with this brief vehicle for introducing a few links I found while researching the topic. 

P.S. I wanted to add a link to a YouTube video I found during my research, but it was determined to be distasteful. Two white guys sit at a table, drink some Sparks, throw a deck of cards in the air and start jiving to an 80s dance beat (FOLLOW MEEEEEE, FOLLOW ME). 

Crank That Party Boy

I like to party as much as the next guy, as long as I’m not standing next to Corey Worthington.

The Melbourne, Australia 16-year-old threw a rager when his parents were out of town, causing about $20,000 worth of damage to the neighborhood on Saturday night.  

The party, promoted on Myspace, drew 500 guests and (surprise!) riot police. 

Now he’s on YouTube, CNN, and all over the Australian press’ headlines (replacing lead stories about Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson fighting over a half-drank can of Foster’s). He’s been picked up by police and refuses to talk to his parents, with whom he lived until earlier this week.

The online consensus is that “Party Boy” Corey is the most notorious thing to come out of Australia since Errol Flynn.

Is he? Take a look at the rest of the world’s young celebrities. Watch Laguna Beach, Newport Harbor, The Hills or any of MTV’s “The O.C.” reality ripoffs. 

It’s kids like Corey Worthington, but with no ambition. They’re spoiled, rich teenagers, essentially doing nothing and displaying all the entertainment value of O’Doul’s. They’re the felines of the celebrity world. 

Corey’s more like a young wolf puppy. He found his own attention. And, once he had the camera on him, he kept it interesting, but not quite to the point of self-destruction. 

Did he do anything wrong? Sure, he threw a party. You could even argue that things got a little out of hand, and now he doesn’t really feel like apologizing. Parents around the globe are appalled.

But ask any kid that’s ever been to a party in Australia (or, for that matter, North America) if they’d trade places with Corey right now. He’s on TV. He’s picking up girls at the beach. People are offering him money to do the only thing he cares about: party. He’s a self-made Paris Hilton, without the little dog. 

And, at the end of the day, what did he do? 

He didn’t burn down a school, manslaughter someone or run an illegal dogfighting operation. He didn’t even get arrested driving drunk and throw racial slurs at the cops. 

He threw a party. He didn’t force anyone to go; he didn’t run outside and wreck $20,000 worth of property by himself; and he didn’t personally put anyone in danger.  

Give him a break. Besides, in five years, we’ll probably see him on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Daniel Radcliffe, Clay Aiken, Howie Mandell and Britney Spears’ little sister.

Vader? Really?

Vader’s former school has once again popped into the headlines, now that the taxpayers might be off the hook for taxes. 


Here’s my timeline, from the VanTuyl morgue, on the Vader saga. It dates back to my second month on the job. 

November, 2005: Vader needs a new gym. “It may have met the codes in 1929, but does not meet the codes of 2005,” said architect John Crook, who designed the never-to-be-built new gym and reportedly threw up a little bit, in his mouth, when he toured the old basketball court. 

December, 2005: Local kids, checking the premises one last time, find Blackbeard’s gold buried beneath the ancient gym and, amazingly, the kids bail out the parents (Goonies, anyone?) and save the day. Not really, but the county condemned the building and chained it up for good. I took the last shot ever on the Vader basketball court. 





February, 2006: The first of three levy-bond measures fail. Strike one. The school board decides to tear down the gym. 

March, 2006: “Why does this feel like Bill O’Reilly?” Crook jokes at a meeting about the future of the school. Tempers flare, and the school board votes later that month to run the same bond and levy that failed in the last paragraph.


May, 2006: Vader passes an audit with no findings. The state, however, wants to know how a school with a $12,000 general fund is going to pay for the $50,000 removal of a condemned gym. Parents join the kids in digging for Blackbeard’s gold. Later that month, the levy falls about 20 votes short of passing. The bond falls a lot shorter of the half-century mark. Recess is held in the hallway.


June, 2006: The board makes staff cuts, chopping out hours from four classified employees and revoking cost of living adjustments. Vader merchants decline to return the favor and the price of milk rises to an unattainable $2.99 a gallon.


July, 2006: Chuck Hole, the ESD official with the funniest name in history, tries to help the school straighten out their budget problems. With $195,000 immediately cut from the budget with the levy failure, the rest of Lewis County begins referring to Vader as “one big Chuck Hole.” 

September, 2006: ESD Assistant Superintendent John Molohon attends a meeting, essentially telling the board that they have no money. Figures show the school will end the 2006-07 year with negative $24,000. Without a hilarious name to district audience members, Molohon resorts to a monotone, but witty, repertoire, consisting entirely of “You’re broke.”



November, 2006: The gym gets torn down, ending dreams of a Hoosiers-style state basketball championship. The sport’s purists argue, to deaf ears, that a K-8 school could never have beaten the likes of Rainier Beach, anyway.


“You’re still left with two options — that’s to run a levy or to consolidate,” Molohon says. He adds, for the fourth time, that Bill Gates will not be flying in on a helicopter made of diamonds to throw gold bricks at their problems. Vaderites keep their eyes on the sky, just in case. In the meantime, Fred Chapman checks out the remaining school building, and finds it only slightly more inhabitable than the gym. He resignedly says he’ll have to close it down if a bond fails. 

January, 2007: The board talks bond options. Someone brings up a modular building, and an old man says Vader doesn’t need any more trailers. The modular home option is quickly tossed out the window.


March, 2007: School-saving levy and bond measures both get less than 50 percent of the vote. The Ryderwood retirement community is blamed. The Ryderwood retirement community, it should be pointed out, doesn’t really care anymore. Children start wondering how they’ll look in Winlock maroon and gold.


May, 2007: Vader kids attend school at the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s St. Mary’s Center. The kids like the food and the new digs. Tribal members like having the kids around and offer the school a gift to keep it going until another election. Board members wisely realize that a fourth election will likely have the same result, and decline the gift. Castle Rock agrees to absorb the entire district, on the condition that it gets to use the former school as a detention room. Teachers at The Rock start telling their students the old building is haunted; punctuality increases drastically.



June 15, 2007: The last day of classes ends with kids piling up their belongings and taking off. The bus driver puts Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” on repeat, shouting, “SCHOOOOOOL’S OUT! FOR! EVER!!!” at a load of frightened, and confused, children. 

August 31, 2007: Castle Rock officially absorbs Vader, two months too late to collect taxes in 2008. 

November, 2007: A collection of school and government officials realize the date error described above. “You just can’t die quietly, can you?” they ask the defunct district. 
 “Not on your life,” it replies.


Year in Review

2007: The Year in Review 

There’s nothing more fun than writing a list and, since The Chronicle ran a “Top Stories of 2007” feature, I felt obliged to do the same. Mine, however, covers the most important issues and stories covered by me. Here’s the month-by-month, and slow down if you can’t keep up. 

Everything in this list is absolutely true, unless it isn’t.

JANUARY: Vader officials set up one last effort (a levy-bond combo) to keep their school afloat. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves (“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” 1989) had a better shot at passing than this measure, and they still got help from George Carlin and a time-travelling phone booth. Vader, meanwhile, got help from the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and less than 50 percent of voters. 

Also in January, Onalaska principal Bill Huizinga passed away, Centralia super Doug Kernutt announced his retirement and Tom Manke was essentially hired as Morton’s new super. The Brooklyn Tavern was deemed the coolest bar around, in the pages of our Lifestyle section.  

FEBRUARY: Adna’s second attempt at a construction bond failed, leaving the district with just one overcrowded gym. The middle-high school proceeded to flood in December, leaving the district with no gym. 

In other news, Tenino revised its Athletic Code of Hammurabi after a bunch of kids partied too hard on New Year’s and got suspended, then un-suspended, then re-suspended. Various meetings and shouting matches followed, with a new code released later in the year. Its introduction caused students to pause, quickly gloss over the text and follow it to the letter until the next Friday night.

MARCH: The Mossyrock girls basketball team wins the state championship in comeback fashion, causing coach Gary Stamper to step back, take stock and retire. The stalwart coach, who seemingly took a Viking team to state every year since the shot clock was instituted, spent the summer ignoring phone calls from Sam Presti to coach the Seattle Supersonics. The deal-breaker came when the new general manager refused to let Lexi Belcher start over Damien Wilkins at small forward. 

Also: Napavine girls and the Mossyrock boys teams land trophies at the state 2B basketball tournament; both teams get very tired of being compared to the Lady Vikings. Jordans Palmer and Bradley decline to shave their good-luck Mohawks; Willapa Valley coach John Peterson, who’s squad lost the 5th-8th place game to Mossy, makes a note in his daily planner to give his starting five mullets (for luck) next February. 

APRIL: The maligned Gibson House building was sold to Thurston County insurance agent Lee Ingrim. The ghost of Penny McWain’s credit still haunts the second floor, so Ingrim fills the ceiling in and makes it a dance hall. The restaurant reopened in December with a cheaper menu and a bar (which, rumor has it, originally cost about $35,000 to build) serving cocktails for under $4. High school kids rejoice in no longer having to drive to Olympia before prom. 

Also: Former Tiger, and good ol’ boy, Kim Ashmore is appointed to a vacant seat on the Centralia School Board. Younger brothers (and local prep referees) Rex and Doug are given celebratory noogies. 

MAY: Centralia seniors Abby Anderson and Marie Jenkins team up with Chehalian Emily Weeks to score a trip to National History Day 2007 in Maryland. The three plan to have a blast until they realize that, well, they’re going to Maryland. Their presentation, based on the Centralia Massacre, is so well-done that it goes on to be voted mayor of Bucoda. 

Also: Cowlitz River fishermen complain about the small runs. Commissioner Lee Grose tells them to form a plan. The River tells them to shut up or it’ll flood them out of their homes and eat Toledo.

JUNE: My little brother graduates and plans to leave Adna forever. Longtime Adna Middle-High School counselor Joni Randolph, sad that no VanTuyls are left at the school, retires. 

Also: Ten-screen theater announces for the sixth time that it is coming to the Lewis County Mall. Lewis County remains dubious, wondering, “But will it show Stomp the Yard part 2?” The theater, however, remains more believable than the REQ Center, Swedish Village or that college supposedly planned for Napavine.  

JULY: The first-ever Hispanic Festival comes to Centralia, spurring a week-long series of stories about the local Latino community. Lewis County’s Polish population quietly wonders when their day in the sun will come. 

Also: A Rochester community comes alive at the realization that a dormant gravel pit, literally in their back yards, will be reopened to provide fill for the I-5 widening project. A state DOT representative jumps out of the pit in an orange mumu with black spots and a blue tie, shouting, “And there’s nothing you can yabba-dabba-do!”

AUGUST: Dave Waldock announces the pending closure of his Chehalis hardware store and, after 40 years of working 60 hour weeks, the upcoming time and date of his first nap. He also, skeptically, plans something called a “vacation,” but says he’ll take his apron with him, just in case.

Also: Matthew Lovo, Chehalis, jumps into the driver’s seat and stops his dad’s semi truck when Pa falls unconscious. Despite commendation as a hero, the nine-year-old Lovo still has to take out the trash when he gets home.  

SEPTEMBER: National Teacher of the Year Andrea Rahn-Peterson returns to her alma mater, Onalaska High School. During her address she jokes that, as a kid, she found it ironic that guest speakers would come in and talk about how much they’d screwed up as kids before straightening out and making something of themselves (namely, careers in the motivational speaking circuit). The NTOY said it was funny that the speakers would try to convince kids not to make the same mistakes they did, even though the speakers seemed to turn out alright. 

This comes literally the day after Centralia High School hosts Richard Santana, a California-raised gangster-turned-Harvard grad, to present to the student body on the mistakes he made as a youth and how he righted them to take a career on the motivational speaking circuit.

OCTOBER: The 100th-Year Chronicle-Sponsored Gridiron Battle of the Swamp: Centralia at W.F. West is held in Chehalis. The game, and surrounding hoopla, includes no riots, bonfires, pranks or brawls, leading some ticket-holders to ask for a refund. Centralia wins and takes home the coveted Swampman Trophy; the hardware immediately becomes Lewis County’s Stanley Cup, appearing in the pages of The Chronicle, on KELA’s Let’s Talk About It and at various charity events and fund-raisers. 

Also: Swampy, the gilled, scaled Battle of the Swamp mascot, is initially celebrated and ponders running for county commission. His reputation is sullied, and political ambitions crushed, when text messages from Patti Prouty are found on his Blackberry. After the floods, however, locals question their hasty decision to write Swampy off when someone suggests that he, more than anyone, “probably knows something about keepin’ this place from turning into a damn quagmire.”

NOVEMBER: The November elections finally give traction to the great Peterson-Lawler race of ‘07, marked with bar polls and allegations of misconduct. Locals watch debates, read editorials, listen to radio programs and ultimately realize that, unless they become involved in crime, the contest really has little relevance. Dozens of men in the 18-to-34 demographic inquire about admittance to the “Good Ol’ Boys” club. 

Also: A windshield-repair-telemarketing company in Centralia fires a bunch of employees, who are paid under the table to begin with and given the option of gambling in-house with their commissions. The owner, Mike Tennyson, calls a story on the situation “LIES! ALL LIES!”, tells the reporter in question that he’d like to “meet him on the street and thank him personally!” and is never heard from again. The reporter proceeds to walk the street every day, looking for the promised gratitude.

DECEMBER: Adna floods. Boistfort floods. Doty, Dryad and Pe Ell flood. Centralia and Chehalis flood. Someone asks a certain WSU student, by way of Adna, where he’s from. “You know that flood that shut down I-5?” he answers. “I’m from the deep end.”