You know, some people say college is the best years of your life, while other says high school are the years you’ll never forget.

But you know what, I think that’s all bullshit.

Middle School was the real times of my life. No job, no bills, no real grades, no girl drama, and most importantly, no more cooties. Not a care in the world. Life was as great as a $5 allowance and a bike could take you. If there was ever a time in my life I could go back to, this would be it.

Now that sounds like a great idea, going back to Middle School. This idea sounded so good, just recently I got out my 6th grade yearbook to do a little reminiscing of my golden years. But in doing so, I didn’t get the warm and fuzzy feeling of looking back at my past. Instead, I realized that my friends and I where not as mature and as cool as I thought we were. This yearbook, and its signatures, messages and pictures were documented proof that we were bonafide tools. For the first time ever, I understood why older kids picked on us and gave us swirlies (ok, maybe that was just me).

However, in realizing how much of morons we were, and even though I am almost ashamed to admit it is part of my past, this craptastic stuff was friggin’ ridonkulous. I couldn’t help but understand the hilarity of what I was looking at. This prepubescent artifact was comedic gold. And of course, being the stellar writer that I am, I couldn’t keep this to myself. I have to share this with my avid readers. Being so, I bring to you, a review of the immature and ridiculously heinous Newark Middle School’s 1994 Yearbook.

‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’…yeah right

Here it is. Come on, just by the cover of this thing you know there is going to be some interesting stuff inside. In all honestly, it looks like Newark’s budget in 1994 was almost as low as the IQ of the retard they had design this cover. However, although it’s like some inside joke that somehow made it past editing, it’s a very suitable opening to the madness within this monstrosity.

Looks like a blind person wrote all of this

Here are the first few autograph pages, and being the great man that I am, I highlighted a few points of interest. First, take a look at #1. “Have a nice summer, Kelley Marcano,” and “Russ Gilbert wuz (because using ‘wuz’ instead of ‘was’ automatically made you cool in 1994) here.” Seems pretty harmless right? Well, did I mention these are two of my best friends? Real heart felt guys. You really poured your heart out in this one. I mean after all these years of playing together and getting to know each other, I didn’t know my deodorant had more sentiment than you two. Thanks, dicks.

At #2 we have Josh M., the self-proclaimed ‘Joker” (yeah, real clever) misspelling awEsome. Come on man, I know your in 6th grade, but you can’t spell awesome? On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised considering it came from a kid who uses awesome, cool, and rad as consecutive words. The sad part is this kid is now in the military defending our country. How awsomely comforting.

On to #3, oh wait; this is just the witty guy leaving me just his autograph. Thanks man, I appreciate it. Moving on to #4, in addition to the oh, so classic have a good summer and see you next year, she threw in ‘remember fried dough.’ Sadly, this makes perfect sense to me. You see one of my best friends ‘Boobs’ made out with her best friend, and apparently to her best friend, Boobs’ mouth tasted like fried dough. Apparently this was something she wanted me to look back at and remember for the rest of my life. Well, she was wrong. Knowing what my friend’s mouth tastes like is up there with knowing what cum tastes like with regards to thing I just don’t want to know.

Some more clever hi-jinx

On this next page, at #1 we have your token rebel who attempted to be cool by using a curse word in a yearbook. However, he’s not the bad as- he makes himself out to be considering he buckled under the pressure and skipped the last letter. Maybe he got nervous about his parents maybe finding out and didn’t want to get grounded, which is understandable.

At #2 we have a bitch telling me 32-0, which is rubbing in my face the fact that his little league baseball team beat my team 32-0. Another great memory I could have gone without being reminded of, asshole. Although, I must say, I was one of the only players on my team to get a hit that game, however, it was on an error. But who’s counting?

#3 I am pointing out simply because of the word ‘dudeical.’ That basically speaks for itself so I am just going to move onto #4 where we have the message from the girl that later hustled my virginity, came out of the closet and became a stripper. I guess by her manly-esque writing I shouldn’t have been surprised. On the bright side though, I nailed a lesbian stripper, how many of you can say that? Anyways, # 4 is also pointing out a friend who hilariously replaced the N’s in our names with squiggle lines, and then made a knee-slapping joke of referring to summer as winter. Man, it just doesn’t get any funnier.

So there are the first two pages of my yearbook. Some of my friends made some classic attempts to be funny, and some were just flat out pathetic. Little did they know 10 years later I wouldn’t be laughing with them, I’d be laughing at them as if they were the kid in the cafeteria who dropped his tray. Now let’s move on to the actual yearbook where for god knows what reason, I was the bright kid who wrote things next to people’s pictures.

And now let’s get to the good stuff

Here at #1 we have something that makes no sense to me at all. ‘God bless you my son.’ What in the blue hell does that even mean? I don’t even believe in a God, let alone give people blessings. However, even with my bogus blesses from God, it couldn’t save him from eventually coming out of the closet and sucking miles of dick.

Moving on to #2, it looks as though my sixth grade frame of mind I wrote ‘Keya-pet’ and ‘Shaq” next to my friend Keya’s picture. I remember “Keya-pet’ was my brilliant way of rhyming her name with Chiapet. However, ‘Shaq’ wasn’t so comical, let alone appropriate. You see, I nicknamed her Shaq because she was a huge black girl who I thought was as big as the real Shaq. Actually, inappropriate doesn’t even do justice for that nickname. And looking back on this, it finally makes sense why she never talked to me again, and literally tried to step on my spine in Social Studies in 7th grade.

#3 is my good friend Boobs (fried dough mouth) checking out some paramecium in science class. And as funny as he is, he wrote ‘Have fun, stay young, drink Pepsi.” Thanks for using my yearbook to advertise for a company you don’t work for, and probably never will, I appreciate it. It’s almost as funny as my drawing hair on his baldhead and telling him to ‘get some hair’ Now that’s pure genius, ironic, but pure genius.

And lastly we have #4, where I drew a mustache and goatee on the girl on the bottom left. Odds are, I thought she was a nerd, and me being an asshole probably sent her on a downward spiral in life that will inevitably end with her wrapping her lips around a shotgun. Either that or some guys’ dick in some low rate porn. Hell, maybe that guy might be the kid two pictures over from ‘Keya-pet,’ who I also drew nifty facial hair on.

Some more crap

Now there isn’t much going on here, but there are a few things to point out. #1 isn’t much besides the fact that instead of giving this kid the mustache and goatee treatment, I wrote “he’s cool” over one of my friends’ pictures. Good job Ian. Just what you needed, a way to look back and remind yourself whom you thought was cool and who wasn’t.

#2 is also something quite clever of me. You see, I wrote ‘cruzer’ under a kid’s picture. Now that’s creative because the kid’s last name is Cruz. Get it? Cruz, Cruzer? I can’t make this stuff up folks. God I am pathetic.

Below #3 we have one of my favorite parts of my yearbook. Here we have fellow Zubaz writer Russ “Roosta Da Neezy” Gilbert and his twin brother…in matching outfits, with matching haircuts, and in matching poses. Now if this isn’t the cutest thing in the world, I don’t know what is. This will sure be something I am more than happy to put on the Internet and hang over his head for years to come.

The most classic page of the yearbook

When I first saw this page, I didn’t even know where to begin, but I kept being drawn to the line. See, this line was my way of reminding myself in the future that ‘Head,’ and my friend Boobs (again, fried dough mouth), who was cool by the way, were dating. That line signifies an eternal bond between the two, which would inevitably be broken when Boobs’ idol Kurt Cobain died, and he broke down emotionally and eventually joined the Navy in order to fulfill his lifelong dream of singing show tunes. Sad, but true.

At #2 we have myself, with my classic shaved head with bangs and my ghetto Foghorn Leghorn shirt, basically looking like a walking, talking advertisement for abstinence. But next to me, is Shawna, who I referred to as ‘Yokoshawna’ because she was the fattest, nastiest, sperm whale looking behemoth in our grade, and unfortunately she had a crush on me. But by crush, I mean she stalked me, literally. She even paid my friends to keep tabs on me. I honestly had to get the school board involved because it was so bad. Oh god, I’m beginning to get dizzy writing about it, I better move on.

At #3 I just wanted to point out the picture of the girl who I mentioned earlier as the girl that gang raped my virginity. Yes, that’s a girl, not a guy with a mushroom haircut. I can already read all of your minds as you see that picture, and no, I don’t know what I was thinking.

At #4 and #5 is just me making stupid comments about some classmates. Apparently #4’s eyes look a little hazy, and according to my 6th grade, drug free, never even considered smoking weed, let alone know what it was self, I thought he looked high. And well, I must have known what I was talking about, because looking back on it, that kid still looks stoned as Hell. And at #5 we have a kid whose last name is Martin, who I creatively nicknamed martian, Get it? Martin, Martian. Man I kill myself. I bet him and ‘Cruzer’ are great friends. And very quickly, next to ‘Martian,’ we have my ‘best bud’ Kelley Marcano wearing the latest ugly fashion trend in a snazzy Baja. Truth be known, he was a nerd who I became friends with after I lost a bet.

It appears as though I had no shame in 6th grade, and loved to pick on peoples misfortunes. I’ll meet you all in Hell.

And now we are back to the last few autograph pages

How about some more autographs? Although there isn’t much on this page, there are a few ridonkulous things to point out. From earlier you saw that my best friend Kelley gave me a real heart felt message. Well, here he tops himself. Being the creative powerhouse that he is, at #1 he writes on the spine of the book, ‘Some people write on their hands, I am writing on your crack.’ Thanks Kelley, friends forever.

Then at #2 we have fellow Zubaz writer Russell “Roosta Da Neezy” Gilbert’s twin brother giving me a nice Class of 2000 drawing. There isn’t too much to say here beyond pointing out that this buffoon put a comma in the year 2000. Needless to say, Russell’s twin did not graduate with us…actually, I don’t know if he ever did graduate.

And lastly on this page, at #3 we have that guy who takes up basically the whole page with a pansy-ass message. DON’T BE THAT GUY.

One last page I swear

Again, there isn’t too much going on here, but again, there is some craptastic stuff to point out. Over at #1 we have a kid who was obviously slightly retarded in that he said ‘Yo Justin, have a good summer.” Apparently this kid thought he was writing in someone named Justin’s yearbook, or thought my name was Justin. Damn. Either way I guess I wasn’t as cool as I thought I was. This was solidified with the ‘Not’ at the end. Apparently, not only did he not know my name, he also did not want me to have a good summer. On the behalf of Justin, thanks, prick.

And then at #2, we have someone who put 26 u’s in the word buddy. 26 fucking u’s! What the hell was this chick thinking? She is obviously a stupid whore, and I hope for anyone who ever talks to her that she doesn’t talk like she writes. Dumb bitch.

At #3, fried dough mouth himself strikes again. Here he is That Guy who takes up half the page to write some bogus message, which involves him quoting MTV’s The State and telling me he wants to dip his balls in my yearbook. Thanks Boobs, my yearbook has now chronicled what your mouth tastes like and what you want to do with your balls. Fantastic.

And lastly at #4 we have my favorite signature of the yearbook. ‘Ian, Your cool.’ Damn right. It has been confirmed. Ian Valentine is cool, no matter what idiotic bullshit I wrote in my yearbook or how ugly I looked in my picture. I was cool, and other people thought so. Boo bam.

And that brings me to the end of my yearbook review. As you can see, there were some horrendous pictures, and some people left me some retarded messages that were only matched by my own messages. All in all, I can’t deny that I finally realize that in 6th grade, when I was 13, my friends and myself really were some immature, moronic little kids. But I also can’t deny that these immature and moronic years will forever be remembered as my glory years.

Questions? Comments? Want to sign my yearbook? If so, email me at ikartz11@yahoo.com

And don’t forget to check out my archives here to read other 5-star classic articles written by me.