Jeremy spoke in class today...

I am pretty amused with my new blogpost titles - they are by no means reflecting the current mood I am in while writing this, or the mood I am in today itself. I sing in my mind random songs and maybe because I am also wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt today, hence, the title. It's the first time I've worn this shirt, and had ordered it online, specifically, once I laid my eyes on it. This song played a significant role in my childhood. As someone who was always fascinated with school shootings, I always wondered what made me attracted to them in the first place? I think it was this song, Jeremy, when it came out and that 'oh-so-very-weird' video of the song. Getting told the story by my elder bro and kids at the time, it was very dark. A kid went to class and stood up to shoot himself in the head? Why would anyone do that? It wasn't a 'school shooting' per se, but it still involved a kid and suicide! I always loved Pearl Jam's debut album and as I grew older with the introduction of the internet, I always tried to dig in to find out more about the reasons, why, the real Jeremy, shot himself. 

I strongly remember everyone gathered around the TV to watch CNN back in April 1999 when the Columbine High School shootings took place. Everyone talked about it for days! I was in university at the time away from home, living in the dorms, and it was the only thing my friends and I talked about. I remember reading that the two kids who performed that evil act were inspired by Pearl Jam's song. I always try digging for answers, and sometimes I can't find anything. Like I tried to watch videos of the two kids and read more about them, I always wanted to analyse their personalities and why they did what they did. Maybe I was supposed to be a behavioural psychologist, or an investigative journalist in another lifetime. 

A friend of mine (not really a friend, but someone I went to school with who was two years older than me) killed his mom. Yes, killed his mom. This guy was the most pleasant, friendly kid back in school. I remember he was so polite, played the guitar and laughed a lot. He was dating a girl, we, younger kids found her hot and were always saying he was lucky to be with her. I remember going on a camp trip with school to Siwa and he was sleeping beside me in the tent. This was like six or seven years before he killed his mom. When the news broke to us that he killed her, it was an absolute shock, not only to me but to everyone who knew him. I remember going crazy, trying to find anything about him. Calling everyone, going online (no Facebook at the time), and trying to search the web for anything. The reports at the time said he was a drug addict and needed his fix, and killed his mom when she refused to give him money. He not only killed her, but he put her body in the fridge, and it was his brother who found the body, days after, when he was worried he couldn't reach his mom and went home to check on her. Such tragedy. I haven't seen him or heard of him since school, so I didn't know what really happened to him, that transformation, or how was he like then, and I read a newspaper coverage (those yellow tabloids papers) who interviewed him in jail and he said he has no remorse about what happened. That story stayed with me for years, and until now, every now and then I try to go online and find out anything about him, but there is nothing. Our problem in Egypt is that if something happens, then it's gone forever after a few years. No public record of old newspapers online, it's like nothing happened. I heard he got a life sentence. Someone once said he talked to him on Facebook (while he was in jail). Another someone heard that his hot ex from high school had visited him. I think twenty, more or less, years, have passed by since. Will he come out of jail? How will life be for him, I wonder?

These days, I am constantly checking online and trying to dig for more details about Ramy, the Egyptian who killed two of his co-workers in California. His mother used to be an important figure here (Ex-Minister of Immigration and Egyptian Expatriates) and he is now being trialled in the States. All the sources claim that Ramy is sick and schizophrenic. I spent some time checking Ramy's Twitter account last year when this case happened, and there are some old posts where he talked about getting bullied as a kid and sexually molested. I guess we will never know if he really killed those people on purpose or if he is (was) really sick. Maybe we will. I just feel sorry for all the families who had to lose someone that way, a person getting vigorously and brutally murdered. 

Whenever I hear of a story like that, I always hum the last part of the song, trying to imitate Eddie Vedder's voice, which of course I always fail in, 'Jeremy spoke in...spoke in...Jeremy spoke in...spoke in...Jeremy spoke in class today...'