The Breakfast Club has disbanded

We are blessed to live near one of the greatest natural amphitheaters in the world. It’s a little place called Red Rocks. Bands haven’t truly made it until they’ve played Red Rocks. It’s iconic. If you’re not familiar with Red Rocks, find U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” video and soak in all that glorious music, fire, and rain. That’s Bono. That’s Bono marching around with a flag. That’s Red Rocks.

Throughout warm weather months, something happens there nearly every night. Usually, it’s a concert. On nights when it isn’t booked by would-be Bonos, the Denver Film Society sponsors Film on the Rocks. They pair movies with a short concert and sometimes a comedian. It’s wildly popular. I’ve always wanted to go and got my chance several weeks ago.

Red Rocks. No Bono.

I took one of my teenaged sons to see “The Breakfast Club”. He’s a John Hughes fan, but he had never seen the classic. We went with my brother and sister-in-law, also fans of Hughes and the 80s in general, although they were younger kids during that bitchin’ decade. I graduated from high school in 1989, so I was a true 80s teenager. I danced to “Rock Lobster” with outsized hair while wearing an ESPRIT sweater.

To my son, the 80s are ancient history but I figured he’d enjoy seeing a classic that would paint the olden days in a different light. He’d see 80s kids weren’t much different than kids today. Schools are still clique infested. Kids continue to worry about the same issues.

As we watched I was struck by how much I forgot—and how if it were made today, it would be vastly different.

~ Brian would have been expelled and arrested for bringing a flare gun to school. He wouldn’t have been at Breakfast Club.

~ Likewise, Bender’s locker guillotine would be a one way ticket to expulsion. As the school resource officer disassembled the guillotine, his pot stash would have been discovered. That would lead to arrest. Bender, seemingly permanent resident of Saturday detention, wouldn’t have been there either.

~ Andrew ended up in detention because he physically attacked a kid in the locker room, taping his butt cheeks closed. Today, that would lead to not only suspension, but assault charges. He wouldn’t have been at Breakfast Club.

~ Claire’s crime was skipping school to go shopping. Today, she wouldn’t have to leave the premises to shop. She’d just whip out her smartphone and one-click order those pink Fendi shearling ankle boots, size seven, in between Trig and Creative Writing. She wouldn’t have been at Breakfast Club, either, unless that was the name of an on-trend brunch spot.

~ Emo, mopey, snow-scalped Allison might have been at Breakfast Club, simply because she had nothing better to do. Lucky for her, stores still sell Cap’n Crunch cereal and Pixie Straws. However, she would have ended the day as she began: Without soft makeup, hair full of flakes, no jock to beguile.

Today’s “The Breakfast Club” would be about one solitary girl spending a day in a quiet library, sketching scenes while eating a sugar sandwich. Mr. Vernon couldn’t paw through personnel files, as they’d all be on a computer. Instead, he’d spend his day trolling the Politico comment threads or maybe binge-watching Netflix Originals.

Scratch that. Today, Allison would go to a chain coffee spot and gorge herself on a word we didn’t have in the 80s: Frapps. More sugar than a sugar sandwich with 100% more caffeine buzz!

Yesterday’s Breakfast Club members are today’s Mr. Vernons. Mr. Vernon, proceed. I hear “Longmire” is great.

There is no Breakfast Club any more.