Scared Straight

Parents Let Kid Drop Out of High School to Focus on Guitar Hero

To me, that reads the same as “Parents let kid drop out of highschool to focus on crystal meth,” or “Parents let kid drop out of highschool to explore newfound interest in clumsy teenage sex.”

“”We couldn’t take the complaining anymore,” said his mom.” That’s REAL parenting. The kind of parenting you normally only find when mom and dad share a few chromasomes. The best part is, the kid ISN’T some kind of Guitar Hero prodigy. He won a few local tournaments and has only earned about $1000, and most of that was in chicken sandwich coupons (I shit you not). I know to a kid $1000 worth of Chik-Fil-A seems like all you really need to get by in life (hell, it sounds pretty good to me right now), but man can not live on delicious breaded chicken parts alone. How’s he going to afford fries, Diet Coke and honey mustard?

I remember when I was 8 and I told my mom I was dropping out of 3rd grade and leaving home to join Voltron. I had my arguments rehearsed (something like, “I WANT TO JOIN VOLTRON BECAUSE THEY ARE ROBOT LIONS AND THEY ARE IN SPACE AND THEY HAVE A SWORD AND I WANT TO DRIVE A ROBOT!”) and I wasn’t taking “no” for an answer. As any good parent would do, she told me I couldn’t join Voltron because they were satanic and made Jesus cry. Seemed like a good reason to stay in school at the time. In retrospect I regret not taking that chance at happiness.

Aw hell, Guitar Hero Idiot Kid, go live your dream. You ride that plastic guitar all the way to top. All the way to the extended stay motel where you and your common law wife will wretch and convulse night after night becuase your button clacking skills can’t afford you the delicious meth you need to feed the dragon in your brain. DREAM BIG YOU STUPID SONOFABITCH!

Addendum:

I know there’s more to this story than what I’ve portrayed here. If you want to know the rest, Google and read. If you want to laugh at a silly comic with little to no basis in reality, I can help you with that.

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69 Comments

  3. Just a week? Your parents were pansies. I breathed out of the proper rhythm once and I was held under water for 6 hours.

    I DIED!

  11. A teenager, after years of battling his entire family, grabs his plastic Les Paul and goes to fulfill his dream. His best friend, the only support he has had throughout the years, stands behind him. He tearfully shouts "Dream big you stupid sonofabitch!" Credits roll.

  13. I wish I could tell you that Josh fought the good fight, and Guitar Hero let him be. I wish I could tell you that – but prison is no fairy-tale world. He never said who did it, but we all knew. Things went on like that for awhile – prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Josh would show up with fresh bruises. Guitar Hero kept at him – sometimes he was able to fight it off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for Josh – that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him.

  17. When I was a kid, I informed my parents that I was indeed an alien and that my "real" parents were coming to get me (I learned later that my mom's proof against this theory was fourteen hours of labour). It's not that I was mad at my parents, nor did they abuse me in any way, shape, or form; I just felt like I didn't belong, and running away took way too much effort.

  25. Is that eye liner streaming down the kids face? That's awesome. What really annoys me is that he doesn't own a real guitar because the skills don't transfer. That's not a good enough reason.

  26. Is dropping out of public school really so bad these days? I mean really, the guy can get a GED and then higher education later, which is what really counts. Sure, he'll probably regret his decision not to partake of free school like the rest of his peers, but ultimately? He was the one who made that decision. If the parents have exausted themselves trying to discipline him, what better way than to teach him to deal with his own consequences; something that a lot of parents skip out on teaching their children these days.

    It is still kind of sad though. Journey's Neal Schon dropped out of school to play the guitar, but that was because freakin' Santana offered him a gig. This kid is dropping out to play Guitar Hero and earn $1000 worth of Chick Filet. The chances of this kid actually making something of himself are very, very small; but they will be virtually nothing if his parents don't motivate him to at least have -some- consideration for life outside of his fantasy world.

  28. I love it! "Also I think he peed." I keep going back to this and laugh every time I look at it. I swear I must still be a little kid 'cause it always seems to be the toilet humor that gets me.

    Nice comic.

  31. Not a public high school–a Christian academy. And as much FAIL as it is to give up on school with just two mandatory years left to try to make it as a professional fake guitarist, I can almost understand how someone could end up looking for any way out of that especially if they aren't Christian or don't fit in with the prevailing school culture, which is hinted at in the original article. Still, it's like–aim higher, dude?

  32. Those asshole parents should be pilloried for the "Just got tired of him complaining" line. What the F? I complained about something once in 1987 and was rewarded with a week of ruthless beatings.

  35. You guys may think that this kid and his parents are dumb (and I agree with you), but maybe he's on to something. Since everything is going virtual / computerized anyway, maybe this is just the head start his family needs to really make it big in the thriving upcoming world of fauxism.

  39. *insert into story above*
    After battling an almost crippling mountain dew addiction, followed by multiple visits to rehab, he gave up the groupies and forced himself to hone his craft.

    Also, "Dream big, you stupid sonofabitch!" FTW… Lets see the shirt Joel!

  41. Wow. Just. Wow. It never ceases to amaze me when parents utter lines like "we couldn't take the complaining anymore" in justification of allowing their kid to do whatever they please, regardless of how it will affect them later in life. Seriously. If I gave in to my kids due to their complaining, they'd never go to school, bathe, eat proper foods, brush their teeth or get a decent night's sleep. Parenting is hard, and a big un-fun a lot of the time, but if you are going to have a kid, you damn well better be ready to take responsibility for that kid's life for the next 18 years. This is why stupid people shouldn't breed. /rant off.

    (Just to be clear, I'm not saying every situation where a kid is fucked up is the fault of the parents, but clearly there was some major ball-dropping going on here.)

    Also, I love how Josh knows ALL about being Guitar Hero's bitch, and kudos to the guy who melded the story with The Shawshank Redemption. Nice work!

  42. Ok first of all the parents need to smack some sense into this kid. But if the kid is good enough to convince himself and his parents that he even has a shot of making a living off of it, well, its his life so… DREAM BIG YOU STUPID SONOFABITCH!

  47. But he only realizes he needs to straighten up when his girlfriend (played by Angelina Jolie) dumps him and tells him he's wasting his life and is a failure. At the final battle in the Pizza Hut Guitar Hero Rock-a-thon, he defeats his life-long rival and wins her back. 15 dollars worth of coupons in hand, he and his girlfriend rock into the sunset.

    Shit, someone needs to make this.

  49. I wouldn't have believed that had it not happened to me and my mom, to-fucking-day. Not only was it my first time in a chik-fila, but we used a coupon for free food and got another coupon for free food, a moment I Indian teared at. There's also a celebrity moment that almost happened but thats another longer, weirder, more jacked up story, so I do the short version. I saw someone who looked like Ryan Gosling.

  50. If any thing the phrase "we couldn't take the complaining anymore" should be immediately fallowed by "the children were then savagely beaten by the haggard parent(s), back to you Chaz".

    Josh's monologue imideaitly brought this to mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrevhAkQWiw&fe…

    Another note, I misread "eat proper foods" as "eat pooper foods" like 12 times in the above post.

  51. I could go to Catholic school, maybe just for the supposed hot school girls but, I don't know if thats a myth or not. Not that I would have a chance or anything. But do Christian schools have hot chicks or is it just anti-monkey fuckers.

  57. His rival in the Pizza Hut Guitar Hero Rock-a-thon is an 8 year old autistic boy whose parents can't afford to buy him video games, so they take him out to these competitions as a cheap form of entertainment. He's never played Guitar Hero before, but he picks it up in the first couple of rounds. The final battle is hard-fought, and both players are forced to their fullest potential… The teenager comes through victorious in the end, as he merges his body with the plastic Les Paul, becomes one with the 360, manipulates the game code with his mind and blows the crowd away with an original composition.

    Alternate ending: Autistic kid watches him leave with hatred in his eyes and mumbles under his breath "Dream big you stupid sonofabitch… I will kill you…"

  60. They said in one article I read that that kid has a tutor now and is doing better at his schoolwork than ever before. He dropped out of school, but he didn't totally give up on education.

  62. OMFG i wish people would quit posting this story and bitching about it. If you actually bother to read a real news source you'll find that his parents hired a private tutor for him. If you want to start bitching about what home-schooled kids do in their free time, you better take a deep breath, because you're gonna be going on for awhile.

  65. I used to try lifting manhole covers in the streets around my house, hoping I'd either meet the Mario Bros. or the Ninja Turtles and they'd ask me to join in their fight against their respective evils.

  66. Then there's people like you that have to whine about free entertainment. Joel's putting his all to try to make people have a laugh and get a lively conversation going and yet you don't even have the courtesy to not comment if you dislike it.

    If you don't like it, then do as Joel said–find another of the 12 frillion webcomics out there that WILL suit your sense of humor.

    Seriously, chill out, have a LOL. If that's too much to ask of you, then don't let the back button hit you on the way out.

    PS: No one gives a flying monkey about what home-schooled brats do in their spare time.

  67. Sorry for my absence, Joel! I had been too tied up with work and whatnot that my daily dose of webcomics has suffered greatly.

    This is definitely one of my favorites–anything to do with GH or RB is, these days 😉

    Anyway, in response to Purple Monkey Dishwasher's comment above, yeah, there IS a little more merit to the parents' decision–they did the right thing by hiring him a tutor and thank the god the bugger is actually learning stuff.

    But where I think the majority of the people's grievance with the kid's parents is that they gave the worst, most cop-outiest excuse for allowing him to do that–they were sick of his bitching. They're showing him that because he whined beyond their tolerance threshold, he can essentially get what he wants from them, endangering his ability to be self-reliant in the future.

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