By Zach Hosseini

Do you ever think we lionize the wrong people? You’ve probably asked yourself that question or something similar — sans the word “lionize.” But the point here is, at one point in time we’ve all been part of that anti-Britney, anti-pop culture passive aggressive movement that sweeps down to put pop queens and kings in their respective places. And that’s all fine and dandy — we all deserve to get sick of what’s stuffed down our throats on MTV and, well, MTV.

But what I want to get at is this; we shouldn’t be patterning ourselves after anyone — nope, not a soul. OK, before you get hot and bothered or stop reading, hear me out.

It’s not my contention that there are not respectable people in every day life, people who define what it means to be a great soul. Just walk down the street and you can see a strong woman, the single mother that takes care of her three children and works and slaves to give her kids the very best she can. You could also come across the enigmatic leader who led a great organization to heights that made a community better as a whole. Or for a more specific example, you may have known someone like twenty-something Tommy Camejo. I got to know Camejo, who died last year, through phone conversations with his mother who called me quite often at my co-op job because she was interested in starting a benefit walk in her son’s name. Tommy was bright kid, with a brilliant future, who died young because of something achingly trivial: asthma.

I’m sure we can all conjure up images of those three examples. We can remember them with fondness and with the television show we saw about them. But what we like about them is the idea of them. They are a perfect American story line.

Whether it is the runt who overcomes adversity or the tough minded winner, we can’t get enough of it. But we forget who these people are as, well … people.

And there’s one group in particular who seem to own the greatest ability to shroud their human characteristics flaws. They really are screw-ups, transients, jerks, macho paternal man-pigs, bossy femi-Nazi’s, perverts and idiots — and that’s just your parents. Yep, that’s who I’m trying to take down. I’m telling you that no matter how much you kick and scream, if you haven’t come to the realization that your parents were, or are, absolute weirdoes. It’s coming, keep a box of tissues close by and stay away from high ledges.

Our parents are supposed to be the last safe haven from the fake, drug-addled Hollywood freaks that grace our magazines and televisions. They’re sanctity and sanity when we just can’t handle why we’re un-athletic and ugly.

They’re supposed to be the epitome of stability and sage. But, (and for those who have already figured this out, skip down to the next paragraph) they are not.

The ideas of our parents as heroes flying around like supermen and superwomen, rescuing us from scraped knees, our acne and lost state championships, are all just another creation of the mind. We need their stability as we grow. We go through our youth needing a reference point on good and bad, moral and immoral, fashion do’s and flannel. Our need for absolute love, and our parents’ need to be that, create for a lack of a less clich