Just Ask Lil Mama

In my ongoing love affair with reality television, I've been enjoying a whole new season of America's Best Dance Crew. A show with Mario Lopez as the host shouldn't really be all that great, but I first fell in love with this show because of the Jabberwockeez--who were just incredibly intelligent dancers. They were so much fun to watch. This season hasn't been as good, but it's interesting. This time the dance team from Rutgers made the show, calling themselves "SassX7" (Sass times seven) although it looks pretty silly to see them doing their toe touches and back flips while other crews are breakin' on stage and doing crazy tricks. They lost tonight to the Boogie Bots, having failed to successfully impersonate Britney Spears times seven.

But as I was watching the show this time around, something that merely irked me in the first season now has me driven to distraction. And that's Lil Mama's inability to articulate her advice to the contestants. I have problems with her being a judge anyway. So her lip gloss be poppin'. So what? What does she really know about street dancing? At least Shane is a top choreographer. JC, while lame to me because of his boy band status, was at the height of the pop scene for half a minute and has more experience with group dancing. But I'm not sure what her credibility is for the show, other than she's young and an "of the millisecond" kind of pop star. She's only 19 years old--maybe even younger, I can't quite pin her birthdate down.  Maybe they brought her in for the youth factor.  Unfortunately for her, most of MTV's prime demographic hate her too. Rumor has it she is close to being replaced.  Anyhoo.

At the auditions for the second season, her advice consisted of the following. Feel free to reverse order and/or run repeat as often as you like, it still works: "I need you to come hard with it, yah'll better bring it, this is the second season. You have to be hard. This is the second season, yah'll gotta come with it, so you need to bring it, 'cause this is the second season. It's gotta be hard." She said this at least three times in a row in various combinations to each crew. I sort of understood where she was going with it. After all, it's going to be hella hard to erase the impression the Jabberwockeez made the first time around, and much of what most of the dance crews were doing looked derivative.

But then her advice just got more and more...nebulous...as the season started. I mean, I know it's supposed to be "street" and I know there is slang involved. I have no problem with slang--in fact, I think it's a great way to express things that traditional language can't quite capture. But I can usually follow the slang. When she tries to explain to them what they need to be doing to improve themselves, I'm not sure if it's poetry or pathetic. Here are some choice samples:

(to Sassx7) Yah'll have to be careful or yah'll be pigeon held.

Yah'lls perfeck, yah'lls just need to just keep working on yah'lls perfection. (If it's perfect, how can you keep working on it?)

Yah'll need to mediate yah'lls bodies.

Just make sure you take that extra stab...into the heart...of the chicken. (laughs)

When yah'll had them little pieces where yah'll exploded, that was interesting...(pause)...fix your face.

Now where would you begin with advice like that? How would you begin to stab the heart of the Dance Chicken, much less take an extra stab at it?  Most of the crews nod while their faces look like "Sez what??" They can't disrespect her, because she could fail to vote to save them if they land in the bottom two. But most of them look like deers caught in headlights every time she opens her mouth. Her lip gloss is poppin', though.

But, it won't keep me from watching the show. The show is still full of win. In the words of the departing captain of the Rutgers team, "Thank you for the awesome experience. It was awesome."

-- Virgil

The Lessons of Yor--with updated pics!

Maybe it's just because I miss JP and Batmite!, but I'm on a tear about bad movies I saw as a kid.  This one can really give Rem Lezar a run for his brass medalion.  Enter, Yor, The Hunter From the Future!!

This was another brilliant pick by my mother, and its plot was pretty weird for girls who were eight and ten when they saw it. The movie came out in 1983. Here's the plot.

The movie opens with Reb Brown jogging around the stone towers of Cappadocia, Turkey while a rock ballad plays in the background.
[Here's the totally bitchin' YouTube theme song with the introduction of Yor. Note how incredibly unathletic he seems to be. Also, I think the main catchphrase in the song is "Yor (something), he's the ma-an!"]

In a nearby village, Kala, a seemingly primitive cave-woman, and her older protector Pag are hunting. Suddenly, they are attacked by an animatronic triceratops. Yor appears out of nowhere and cracks the skull of the dinosaur. Yor is befriended by the village and joins in the feasting.
While Yor is there, a band of cavemen with blue skin attack the village. Only Yor and Pag escape. Yor immediately swears to get Kala back. Yor and Pag track the blue cavemen to their lair where Yor clubs a giant bat to death with a rock. He uses the dead bat like a hang glider to storm the lair and sneak out the back of the cave with Kala before flooding the cave.
Eventually, Yor (in an effort to discover his true origins), makes his way to an island surrounded by storms. There he discovers that his parents were from a small band of nuclear holocaust survivors. An evil man named the Overlord has taken control of the remaining nuclear technology with his android army.

Yor is the epitome of manliness. Don't believe me? Watch this brief clip of how he deals with modern weaponry:


It is on this island that he discovers a female who is blonde and presumably of his race. The brown headed girl Kala sees this as an imminent sexual threat and beans her in the head with a rock, killing her. At the time, I remember thinking that was probably the best thing to do. The best line of the movie comes when Yor stares helplessly with rising frustration at the alien communication device. Yor to alien communicator: "Damn talking box!!!" We thought that was pretty risque. Yor also wears a medallion, which is the source of his quest. Maybe Mom had a thing for movies with medallions in them?

Reb Brown was a really crappy actor who made a couple of guest appearances on Miami Vice and he was Captain America in the TV version, which Wiki calls "unsuccessful." He was also in Space Mutiny, which seems to be his bigger claim to fame.

You can actually watch the whole movie in parts on YouTube, if you want to. And I'm betting a couple of you actually will. You know you want to...

But he has helped shape my thinking when it comes to trying to navigate nonhuman phone services--you know, the ones where you have to push one for English and then two for something else and then five if you have this particular problem and then enter your account number followed by the pound sign, etc.: "DAMN TALKING BOX!!!"

Or, maybe the movie should've just released straight-to-teenage-girls'-bedroom-walls posters of Yor's glamour shots. That might've been more successful:



-- Virgil

Was My Fantasy For Real?

Because I didn't grow up with cable, we watched some really dumbass movies when I was a kid. We lived at the head of the hollow in the valley of a bunch of mountains. We called it the "Holler." Even now, back home I've heard people walk in a book store and ask for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollers." We understand that. So anyway, my mom's version of what her girls would like to watch was vastly different from what we would've picked for ourselves. Enter: REM LEZAR! What a great name!

Here's the basic plot summary:

Zack gets in trouble in class for daydreaming about a superhero named Rem Lezar, and sent to the principal. He storms out of the principal's office, believing him incapable of understanding him. Later in art class, Zack sculpts an image of Rem Lezar, whom Ashlee has also dreamed about, and has drawn. Ashlee is the first person to believe that Rem Lezar is more than imaginary, but she will not speak with him as long as he keeps up a sexist attitude. The two obtain a male mannequin (apparently, they stole it), and dress it like Rem Lezar, who comes to life in their arms. He can live but a single day unless Zack and Ashlee find the Quixotic Medallion to keep him permanently alive. The fear-mongering face, Vorock, tells them it is hidden at the height of imagination, and Zack concedes to Ashlee's idea that it might be in a building, but when the World Trade Center isn't it, Ashlee accepts going to the mountains, where they (apparently inadvertently) split up their search, each bringing a Rem Lezar.

I don't remember Zack having a sexist attitude, unless it's that one line in the movie where he says something like "You're a girl and you wouldn't understand." Which might apply to a concept like blue balls, but not to Rem Lezar. Here is the video where the kids bring Rem Lezar to life.


Is our fantasy for real, or is it just a dream? I don't know. But looking back on the video as an adult, it's disturbing.

But not quite as disturbing as when Rem Lezar takes the kids on a walk through the park and runs into the neighborhood...musicians? friendly, fun loving displaced people? Not sure. Check it out. There is a style for everybody to enjoy.

Just.  Wow.

In the end, I don't really remember what happens, but seems like each kid gets their own Rem Lezar.  The whole thing was supposed to be about tween angst--they aren't getting along with their parents and Zachy is having trouble at school.  Ashlee has difficulty sleeping at night without a nightlight, even though she appears to be around ten or eleven, which her mother expresses difficulty with.  Her exact quote is, "My patience is wearing thin with you, young lady."  That's the most severe line in the movie.  Nothing too serious.  Rem Lezar deals strictly with the middle class.  The biggest threat is making sure Vorock doesn't get away with hiding Rem's medallion; of course, I always wondered why the kids couldn't just make another one out of junk like they did before.  Rem Lezar was supposed to be a stand-in for kids who are going through a tough time heading into puberty (but not quite there yet).  Come rub my medallion, my pretty...

-- Virgil

Gone in a Puff

I try to be as pseudonymous as possible on my blog, because I interact with a lot of different groups of people. Most of them are not net savvy, but you can never be too careful. But I want to bitch about my favorite bar, and it's just got such a great name I don't want to make something up. I've been going to Smokin' Jack's every time I get a chance when I'm over in that county. It would be a forty minute haul otherwise. It's my favorite bar in either county (with the Rat Pack running a close second). It's kind of hard to explain why it's such a great bar, but it has something to do with the physical set up and the atmosphere. There's the actual bar and a few booths, but most people sit at the bar. There's a back room where dart stuff happens. But you end up mostly crammed at the bar, and you don't seem to mind.

The service is quick and the people who come in, as local as you can get although you will have union workers coming through in packs, are better than most of the places I've been in the county where I live. They haven't met a stranger. They usually open up a conversation with a joke--a very nasty one. Most of the time it's even funny. I've even poked a complete stranger in the arm and asked for juke box money and got it. But maybe he was just surprised. I see the same people on a regular basis, so I can cajole them like anybody else now. In a recent sign of receiving my patron's rights, I was told about the secret room on the side of the bar where drunk patrons can sleep it off if they need to. It's not one of those rooms. It locks from the inside. It took two years for me to be told about the room, but Jack finally told me about it.

And then there is Jack. Or at least was. The reason the bar is great is because Jack is great. He took the place from a drug dump to the best bar in the county. He turns a good business, he has Swampfest, brings in live music, all that sort of thing. He's a good bartender. He makes good conversation. He has commitment issues, so there's always a new girl behind the bar every two months, but that's OK. He's the kind that always says, "Are you good to drive?" before you head out the door. I think he's a good bartender because he has a liberal arts education. Har. But seriously, he has a history degree with a focus in preservation. It gives him an aesthetic edge. He knows there's an atmosphere to good bars, and he's managed to create that. But three weeks ago, he woke up in the morning saying, "I'm done." And he sold the bar.

He sold it to the bouncer, named John. But I think it'll stay Smokin' Jack's and not Smokin' John's. Because the only thing John smokes is too much reefer. I've been to Smokin' Jack's three times since the transition with John. I no longer like the place. I never realized what a difference the bartender makes, but let me tell you, it's tremendous. John is older, he's missing some teeth, he's short and he always wears an American flag bandanna around his head. He's also...sneaky. The first time I came in when he was taking over, he spent a great deal of time talking to me. Mostly to tell me how good looking I was and how often did I come in here. Which, considering he was the bouncer and didn't know shows how lightening fast his recall ability was. Jack never told me I was good looking. I didn't need for him to. I don't need my bartender to get a hard on for me, because he's pouring my fucking drinks. I have to trust what he puts in there and the fact that he's on my side and not trying to get into my pants. I didn't spend too much time talking to the people around me, because he kept coming over before I figured out what he was doing. I thought he was chatting up the patrons because he wants to keep them from going somewhere else. Silly me.

The second time I came in, it was with an even bigger pack of people. Sneaky John comes on over and starts talking me up, chiding me for not having come down to the bar even sooner than I already have. I explain to him that I work a hell of a lot and that it's a forty minute drive for me to get here. It was meant to imply, "Shut the fuck up, because it's a privilege for you when I'm here because it's inconvenient for me." He apparently took that to mean, "she needs some place to stay in this county so she can come here more often." For fuck's sake. He even starts blabbing at me while my crew is talking to me, expecting me to ignore them to listen to him. He's neglecting the other people at the bar, for which some of them are getting really pissed. Rightfully so, I would've.

After a long round of the silent treatment, he turned it up a notch. The next thing I know, he's offering me pot and the room in the back. So apparently, all the work Jack did to make the bar not the kind of place where that stuff happens at the drop of a hat (and much worse) could just go up in a puff of smoke. And that pissed me off several ways. First, because he was coming on way too strong and I'm, well, married, and absolutely not interested in him, the former he should know and the latter he's apparently choosing to ignore. Second because it just really seemed like a slap in the face to Jack. It seemed disrespectful somehow, because the deal isn't even complete yet. Sneaky John doesn't have full control of Smokin' Jack's. And he's already pimping out the safe room. Bastard. I must have waved him off with quite a bit of attitude, because five minutes later, there's this little pink drink in front of me. He has one too. D/B is jealous at this point, because we usually coordinate free drinks for the good of all. I hadn't done anything to try and get it, but I did tried to get her one. She finally wouldn't drink it because she was pretty sure it had vodka in it. But he wouldn't tell us what was in it even after asking several times. D/B finally said, "Go ahead and enjoy it. If the bastard put anything in it, I'll shove his teeth down his throat." And she wonders why people think we're "together." So I drank it. It was a good drink and really well mixed.

It was called "rocket fuel," and apparently has gin and vodka and triple sec and something else in it--kind of like a long island ice tea with only the clear booze plus some flavoring of some sort of fruit and grenadine. It's also really powerful. But not as powerful as Sneaky John hoped it would be, apparently, as he continued to bug me for the next twenty minutes about whether I felt "OK" and that the drink was "really damned strong" and that maybe I'd want to go "lay down somewhere." I don't need a coy bartender. I don't need a bartender who is looking out for his penis's interests instead of mine. I can't have a good time and drink my beer if I have to worry about where he is and what he's coming back with. And I shouldn't have to consider whether pissing the bartender off means I don't get to come back anymore. I've pissed plenty of male bartenders off--and I could care less, because it wasn't my favorite bar and I didn't care whether I came back anyway. But this used to be my favorite bar. But without Jack it ain't smokin' anymore. So finally I just got aggravated and said, "Listen, buddy. I may be little, but I can drink a hell of a lot more than you think I can. I smell stronger after a day's work than that little thing can kick. Cash me out." And I paid for all of our drinks up to that point and I left early. I came back a third time with El Hijo, but he wasn't there. Jack was, though. I gave him an earful of what I thought about him leaving, and I wished him the best of luck.

But I'm probably going to have to find a new bar.

-- Virgil

A Rebel Sportster

I haven't been getting out as much as I'd like, because it seems like there is too much to keep track of and get done. And when I do have free time, I seem to spend it winding down. We've recently gone to a four day work week because of gas prices, so I have Fridays off. I usually spend the first part of the day pacing around the house going "wtf just happened this week?!" Plus, after the 70 hour work weeks I had been pulling for basically two years, there's a part of my brain that just shuts down the machinery when it sees the chance to do so. I guess to rebuild or restore or something healthy and stupid like that. So I was really grateful when D/B hauled me over to the Harley-Davidson ladies night.

I'll just let you build an image of whatever you might think that looks like. Because everybody came with their own version of what it was going to look like, and nobody was right. I'll give you a minute.

What would you choose to wear to such an event? That was a stumper. I have the leather stuff if needed, but that seemed like overkill. So I decided on what made me comfortable and a tad dressy at the same time. Clothes you could move around in just in case you needed to duck a beer bottle or something. D/B came dressed in her camouflage shorts and she was flecked with paint where she'd been painting one of her rentals. She still doesn't understand why butch lesbians hit on her. Or why people think I'm her bitch when we go places. I've tried to explain that it starts with the shorts and ends with the tool box on her truck, but she really is just that thick, and now it's just funny. So she basically came dressed to continue her stereotype, as usual.

We get there and there weren't as many cars as I thought there would be. And no bikes, but it was supposed to rain, so that was really the wiser choice. For some reason, ladies' night events are just not well attended by women. They are well attended by me, but I don't understand why more ladies don't do it. It's not like the family couldn't figure out how to make a bologna sandwich one night out of the year or something. The same kind of turnout happened at the male stripper show we went to, but turns out the women who stayed home were the smarter ones. Anyhoo. There were probably about 30 women there. That sucks for this area. We came in and registered and were told to wear name tags. I hate name tags. So does D/B. So we put them in the trash. The dressed up blondes who were registering us looked alarmed and surprised. Which alarmed and surprised me considering they work in a Harley shop. How many of their customers would likely wear name tags? The second question was "Where's the beer?" Turns out there's no beer at this event. Just wine. Because it's ladies night.

So right back out the door we go over to the BP station and come back with our Miller lite pack. More surprised and alarmed looks.

The night really just went downhill from there. The women who were here fell into three categories. There were a small minority of women who actually owned and rode their own bikes. There were a small minority of women who had been dragged along by their biker friend in case this ladies' night thing was full of horseshit and they needed a drinking buddy. There were two of us, counting me. The vast majority of the women were the ones that rode "bitch" on the bike. And the whole point of this event was to give them some skirt to get one of their own (and the cash that would generate for the store, obviously.) The whole event was obviously pitched at the girly-girls on the back of the bike. We were told when we came in that everything in the store was 10% off. "Including bikes?" I asked. "Um. No. The clothes." The store is mostly made up of bikes, so that seemed weird. They had a fashion show of all the Harley gear you could wear. Mostly silly stuff. When the lone male "model" came out, there were some hoots from the minority to strip, take it off, show us your ass, etc. I'll leave you to figure out who may have been behind that. But I can report that at the end of the show, he came back down the runway and dropped down to his boxers.

Most of the women seemed to be drinking Pepsi. We finished our Miller and went on to their wine. We took two bottles of it home with us afterward. The rest of the event was broken into stations where we were taken to different bikes and encouraged to sit on them and start them. One of us tipped one over, because she thought it was heavier than it turned out to be. I'll leave you to speculate about that person, but it was the same one drinking Miller and hooting at male models. In general it was pretty boring. Those who already rode didn't get anything out of it, and the ones who were supposed to sit on the bike for themselves and start it didn't.

I did fall in love with a bike, though.



It's a Harley-Davidson Sportster, and about as much bike as I could handle anyway. I've always loved bikes, and I'd love to have one. I've just never had the time or the money to do anything about it. I was a single mom at 19, and any extra money usually went to paying off bills or buying books for college. I didn't dare waste it on a luxury. But you know, I just might revisit that. Soon.

I'd start off on this, of course:



It's a Honda Rebel, and basically the "starter" bike. Until I figured out how not to skin up the good one.

Afterwards, we went to the bar next door to talk about bikes. And about how our favorite bar is going wa-ay downhill. But that's next time's post.
-- Virgil

Transitions

I feel rather torn at the moment, because I'm busy ramping up into my new job, which involves working up a new course, getting training in all that stuff, trying to merge English with the student life course, trying not to be the new puppy who pees on everybody's shoes, trying to be competent in general. And trying to close out my old job.

There are lots of transitions going on this summer. I have only about six more weeks at my literacy job, and I have to try and wrap the big stuff up so that the new person is not behind from the beginning. Like I was. I had a rough training period. Well, there was no training period at all, actually. I came in and sat down and just started saying "What's this? What do I do with this? Where does that go? What's this..." The previous assistant directors had basically just shuffled any and all papers into a big pile. I remember pulling out what looked like an official looking piece of paper and asking D/B "Is this important?" It was a grant report deadline long overdue. She nearly flatlined. I don't want to pass that burden onto someone else. I'm also working on a manual for the job. I have to say I had no idea how much I did and how many little steps were involved until I had to write it as though I was explaining it to someone else. No wonder I can't keep all my responsibilities straight! On the other hand as I'm writing this and have full control over it, I get to add categories like "What Happens If I Get A Shitty Volunteer??"

D/B gets more miserable as each week comes and goes. I can't say that I blame her, really. I think part of her is a bit jealous that I'm moving on to something better when she's tried to find better jobs herself. But it's also just a general state of panic about what will happen to the office once I'm gone. I'm pretty good at handling her, so I predict a plunge in diplomacy. Sigh. It feels weird to be moving away from nonprofit. I like it so much. On the other hand, teaching is very much not for profit, as my starving grad student friends will tell you. I like the feeling of taking the bull by the horns, and I've gotten the chance with the pilot project I'm working on this fall.

I've also had to learn that I can't take on new projects for the agency right now, which has been difficult to do. I simply can't start anything new when I have to spend all my time wrapping everything up. I wanted so badly to get the tutor meetup thing started. They need it desperately. I wanted to arrange to get D/B into some management classes. There were a range of ideas, but no time to really implement them. But part of the wisdom of getting control over your schedule is knowing when to back away from it. So, I put the major projects that I have to get done on the list, and except for the asst. manual, there are no new ideas in the pipeline.

I love working with literacy issues. If I had only one shot at "saving" the world, I would aim my gun at illiteracy. It's the cause of so many other problems--it's the root of nearly everything else. When people can read, they become more involved all the way around. And it's definitely a cycle. Kids whose parents are illiterate are two to three times more likely to be illiterate themselves. The majority of people in prison have some kind of learning disorder or reading problem. It really is foundational.

But since I'm working with kids now, my new job is to keep them in college and teach them how to argue and write. They're all first generation college students. Like me. My classes all have a bent toward activism of any stripe. This past class I had a team working on the Bright movement (young atheists) and a team working on Young Life (youth religious organization). I don't care that their beliefs are different from mine. I do care that they participate. And I think one of the reasons we continue to have problems is because people are disillusioned about participation. Part of my goal is to change that attitude. I'm going to give it the old college try. Part of me gets more and more intimidated as I get into this job, for reasons I may post about later. I'm being encourgaged to "teach vanilla", if you will, or basically to go back to bland assignments until the crossover is established. I'll let those who know me stop smirking and tell you whether that's likely to happen. Sigh.

Out of the frying pan into the fire,

-- Virgil

Slovenly Slovenness

You know, sometimes marriage sucks. Big balls. Sometimes. The few old couples I know who've been married for 97 years who claim it was a fantabulous century together--I don't believe them. I think they're slightly senile and have forgotten the bad bits. Like a few years after you give birth how you can't remember that it was like trying to pass a watermelon and that your body would just break in half before this happened and who the hell ever came up with this idea anyway?! (All thoughts I had just before Dante came into the world hungry. So hungry he tried to eat the doctor's thumb before he was literally half out. Nothing about that has changed in nearly eleven years. You should see my grocery bill.) You don't remember those crappy parts. You remember it wasn't pleasant, but your brain erases that part. Seriously, I read that somewhere in an important article. I'm just a bit too muggy to go look for it right now. Take my word for it. I think the same thing happens with marriages every so often.

Every so often, you look at the other person while you're sitting on the couch drinking your beer and go: "Whoa. What exactly happened here? Who thought this was a brilliant plan? I could've been an opera singer." Or some other stupid and outlandish plan that you never would've really done because getting married and doing whatever you're doing now was just more logical. And it's really true what people say who've been through a divorce: People change. But what I don't think many people take into account is that everybody changes. Or at least they should. Hell, being married when it's good gives you the base for personal growth. It's a secure place to come back to, somebody who is in your corner (most of the time). Everybody should evolve. If you stay static you become dull at the very least. The trick, I think, is to figure out how to keep adapting to each other once one of you evolves. But don't take my word for it, I've only been married for three years. I'm surviving, but it remains to be seen if I'll become extinct from the experiment.

I can't see myself married to anybody else but El Hijo. But I've definitely had the thought, "If this doesn't work, I am never marrying anybody again." (Dear, if you read this, just lol, 'kay?) Marriage was just not something I thought practical in my life, because I couldn't really see how I could get what I wanted while still respecting somebody else. Seemed simpler to do without. The bits that frustrate me now is the part I should've seen coming but didn't in the beginning--the part where you're comfortable with each other. I think this happens to everybody. I also don't think it's as bad as I originally thought it was. But sometimes the forces of life throw you into repetitive cycles, and it seems like weeks go by where you're just coordinated machines: he does laundry, I grab groceries, coordinated kid pick up, I'm working this night, his meeting is that night, I've rescheduled this to accommodate that, he's going to swing by and take care of that so that I can go do this. And then it's three weeks later before you know it. And I hate those stupid little magazine articles about bringing "zing" back into your relationship to break up the ritual of living. They seem like facades to me. It seems like the articles should really be called: How-to-make-a-here-dear-I-have-made-a-candlelight-dinner-just-for-me-and-you -even-though-we-can't-really-enjoy-it-because-the-kid-has-a-spelling-test-to-study-for
-and-the-cat-snuck-under-his-bed-and-clawed-around-and-scared-the-living-shit-out-of
-him-oh-look-your-mom's -on-the-phone-dinner. Summer helps because Dante goes and visits Kentucky, but that doesn't do anything about the work situation we're both in. It's easy to fall into rituals because they smooth the day along.

It's when you fall out of the ritual that you realize how the other betters or impacts your life.

So, El Hijo is gone to Kentucky for a visit this week. I have never really spent too much time completely by myself. Dante was born when I was two weeks off my 20th birthday. Time alone is weird. Apparently when I get time alone, I live it like an alcoholic middle aged man. El Hijo has called to check up on me and apparently the first thing to go to hell was my diet. I haven't cooked all week--no point in it. Monday I ate a rotisserie chicken from the deli and washed it down with expensive beer. "No vegetables?!" "None." I said smugly. Tuesday morning I had a cold cut combo sub sandwich for breakfast. It was good. It had vegetables, but three kinds of meat. Tuesday was our annual meeting and picnic, so I ate hot dogs and bbq sandwiches and a bunch of other things. Twice. Then I went home and changed and D/B and I closed down the local bar with cheap beer. Which on a Tuesday apparently happens at 10:45, disappointingly. They turned up the lights and had the toilet seats up for cleaning and everything. We practically got run out with a broom. I stayed up late flipping channels between Euro 2008 soccer and boxing. It was probably 1:30 before I fell asleep. Last night I had--what did I have? The other six inches of the subway sandwich, I think. Left over from Monday when I picked it up thinking I would need it for supper on Monday. Oh, and left over Italian food from Sunday night washed down with expensive beer. It's a wonder botulism hasn't set in already, but maybe the beer killed it. So far tonight, I've had a massive burrito and more beer. If I get hungry again, I'm going to cut into the leftovers of the rotisserie chicken (also from Monday) and put some A-1 steak sauce on it. With some beer. Cheap or expensive. Cooking for Dante kept me eating reasonably well, because his food intake was a priority. Taking care of somebody else apparently keeps me from becoming a walking health hazard. With nobody here to monitor me, I'd likely just eat cat food rather than go out for more groceries. The "tuna feast in gravy" did sound incredibly tasty.

I also can't sleep in a bedroom if I'm by myself. I feel like I'm really vulnerable to someone breaking in, and I hear absolutely *everything* that creaks or cracks in or outside of the house. That's residual post traumatic stress disorder stuff, but I really can't kick it. I wish I could, but them's the breaks. So I've been sleeping on my couch. Mostly in my clothes. Once I wore those same clothes back into work the next day. Hey, we're pretty much beyond business casual.

He comes back tomorrow. It would be quite the interesting experience to see what happened if I had a full month or two by myself, but that's almost too scary to contemplate. So we may be "comfortable" right now, but at least I can add "healthy" to the list when he's here. He keeps me from being even more of a burr under the saddle of life than I already am.

-- Virgil

They Grow So Fast!

I've got probably 8 weeks or less left at my literacy job, which is kind of sad and kind of a relief all at the same time. We're taking applications up until the beginning of July, as D/B wants to bring a new person on board by the middle of the month to have them in training for a couple of weeks before I leave. I warned her not to take somebody just because we had only a few choices, but I doubt she'll listen to me. That's how we ended up with Stinky Hippie--fear that there would be no other choice. Up until today we had two applications--a rocket scientist and a waiter. I'm not kidding.

But today one of our tutors put in for the job, and it was a weird and a nice moment all at the same time. Danielle was one of the first tutors I ever brought into the program. I remember her because I met her for lunch when she was just a freshman. She was full of energy and just...ideologically fired up in the kind of naive way that makes old people roll their eyes. But she wasn't the kind to just blather on about how McDonald's was ruining America--it was more the kind of pre-activist who goes on about how the water is so damned polluted and something really ought to be done about it. I guess she didn't have that kind of whiny psuedo-intellectualism that so often comes with kids her age who claim to be interested in making a difference but who are only interested in looking politically modern. She just wanted to roll up her sleeves.

She didn't have that attitude of "What are you going to give me?" I hate that attitude. She just wanted to go to work. She came into my program wanting to help somebody and maybe figure out what this nonprofit business was all about. And work she did. She worked for my program, she became the President of her university's branch of the Sierra Club for a while, she went home and worked on some chapter of Oceana (I think) which targets mercury poisoning in water (among other things). She called me when she was getting ready to leave for the summer and gave me her home county information, asking if I could connect her with anybody doing literacy stuff back home. I asked her to total her hours up for me and she won a President's Volunteer Service Award last year. I sent a little card to her home address back in Maryland telling her how proud I was of her and how she really deserved the award, mainly because she was smart enough to realize that results aren't instantaneous--they have to be worked for. Apparently she framed the card next to her award. I keep forgetting how much people like that shit.

The award was on her resume, which made me smile. Who knew she'd end up listing the award I got her nominated for as proof to me that she'd be good at the job? It seemed like some kind of cosmic grin. There are still some concerns with her. She's going into her senior year, and it's unlikely she'd want to stick around WV after she's done. So odds are good D/B would have to find another assistant in a year's time. Hell, it took me a whole year before I even really knew what I was doing. She's also still in school, and it can be tough to go to school and work this job. I did it. But I'm thirty and she's twenty. I was upfront with her about the concerns that would come up in the interview, and I told her to think about what her response would be to them if she wanted to continue pursuing this job. I think that's fair. That's what my hiring committee told me up front. It made a world of difference. She pumped me for information about grad school, which I told her all about in full biased glory. We talked about other options like Americorps in case she wanted some kind of transition work after her bachelor's degree.

But nonetheless, I've always felt a little more affinity to Danielle than any of my other tutors. I remember her as a wide-eyed freshman and how she talked a mile a minute. Today she was going into her senior year with a nice Florida tan and quite a bit of experience under her belt, really. When I first met her, she talked about failing one of her English classes. She is now a President's scholar at our school and she has a 4.0. She graduates in English, by the way. She says that working in nonprofit helped her focus on doing well in her own life. I understand that in a way that's kind of hard to put into words. It really does help you hone in on things. She's like my little kid nonprofit sister or something.

I'm really proud of her.

I don't know if she'll get the job, or if after she thinks over the bulk of what we talked about she'll even want it anymore. But I'm so proud of her. It would kind of be a nice little complete circle to hand off the reins to her. She'll still end up in nonprofit whatever the outcome, though. It's infected her blood like it has mine. I may be going off to be a full time university teacher, or whatever, but I'm still going to be snuffing around the edges of nonprofit, I'm sure. So will she. Maybe we'll even end up working on something together. But it feels really good to be a part of her civic evolution.

-- Virgil

And Then I Wished I Were Dead

Soon I'll get off this death thing, seriously.

This weekend has been all about those most eye-stab-inducing of academic scenarios--the seminar with guest lecturer. El Hijo was the assistant for this weekend project, which involved lots of fetching and setting up and copy making. It also involves being present for what passes as social functions for such things. The guy who came in was one of the biggest names in his research field, which is a real opportunity to get to schmooze with him. This business is all about contacts. I chose to keep my sanity and not attend the seminar, but as the spouse of El Hijo, it is the dignified thing for me to do to attend the social functions involved with this project.

The best time was probably driving him back to the Pitt airport. See, I know this sounds dumb, but in academia, we have the equivalent of "rock star" professors. This guy was one of them. So, it's like getting to take Mick Jagger to catch his flight. Even better is hearing the gossip about other rock star profs. It's like having Mick Jagger tell you that Ozzy Osbourne sleeps with a teddy bear. But just like this guy is the rock star, everybody else in attendance are the groupies.

The people who flew in from all over the country to go attend this little series of workshops came from a wide variety of backgrounds, but most of them all had one thing in common--they were completely self absorbed. It was the kind of event where people were more interested in spewing their own research activities all over the table rather than absorbing and sharing and coming away with something at the end of the whole thing. Or, if you like the rock star metaphor, sort of like standing at the edge of the stage and screaming "Me!! Me!!! Look at me!!!"

After discussing this with some of the "real" professionals in this field, I have come to the conclusion that this is especially the case with people in this particular field, which is American Indian studies. You can call it a variety of things, and they would spend most of the day probably arguing about just what to call it, but that's what it boils down to. Indian studies is something of a sacred cow. JP knows that first hand. It's one of those areas where people are willing to overlook, say, mass murder by one tribe by another, because they are just so enamored with "preserving" the culture of a particular tribe. It's so ridiculous that one white Jewish guy who'd recently discovered that he was Lakota fought vehemently with another dude over what that person's grandfather's "real" Indian name was. The guy was of Cherokee descent, and that tribe took on Western names much earlier than other tribes did because they came into contact with Europeans earlier. The Jewish Lakota guy who wanted to argue was convinced that the other guy's granddad should've been named "Young Deer" and the fact that his name was "John Smith" just did not fit with his desired view on American Indians.

At first, I only had to hear about these traumatic moments from El Hijo as he came home more and more exhausted by them. But I screwed up big time when he asked me to go to the "Feast" with him, which was their main social event. I sort of felt obligated. For one thing, it's part of the social function of academia--it looks weird if I don't show up. But also, the "Feast" was in the heart of Preston County, and if anybody got lost, I probably knew my way around better than anybody else. Or, I could call D/B and she could talk us through it. Turns out this "Feast" dovetails with one of the other deadly disciplines in any English department -- Appalachian studies. While not as sacred a cow as Indian studies, being in this area entitles you to flaunt your "back to the woodsiness" at people, require them to drink your "crystal clear" spring water, and shove various "native" foods down their throats. All this was represented at the "Feast." As I had feared, this was just a ploy by one of the proffies in the department to capture an audience to show off her cows, her spring house, and all manner of "customs" she claims to have grown up with.

Speaking as a real Appalachian, I mean, one whose family goes back so far they owned the whole holler at one point, I can tell you we don't A) not offer some kind of alcohol to guests, B) leave the dogs out so they don't annoy people C) force venison with local mushrooms down people's throats, D) spread a blanket full of gifts (mainly department books that we are still trying to give away) and insist it's a tradition that you can't leave until the blanket is empty or E) declare it's a tradition to bless the food--with some bizarre African chant, which included pouring out water Tupac style or F) force people to go see your "medicine wheel."

She might as well have just brought out a giant mirror and masturbated in front of it.

Most people seemed to know they were a captive audience. Hell, this was the English department--half of them didn't even eat meat. When she announced the table fare, I hissed at El Hijo: "Do not eat the mushrooms." Thinking my stomach was stronger than his (it usually is), I had 1 1/2 mushrooms, for which I paid in full this morning at the toilet. I was just glad there weren't only soup beans and cornbread to pick from. Most people were extremely uncomfortable--the bugs were eating them alive, and there was no clear agenda. Should we eat now? Later? What the hell was in the venison? Will a cow bite? It was pretty clear someone was just trying to show their street cred--or I guess their "mountain" cred.

I couldn't wait to leave. As one of the profs said to me as she leaned in, "This is like every family reunion I ever went to." Exactly. There were some of us who knew just how fake all this was, and for everyone who didn't, well, they were astoundingly uncomfortable. The Hostess seemed to delight in keeping them off balance. Some profs believe they had to use the outhouse, or it would offend the hostess. She had electricity in her outside john. There were probably copies of the New Yorker in it as well. The road to get to her house was so scraped up we drug the bottom of the car several times. It didn't do much for our mood. When I pulled out, I kicked up mud all over somebody else's car. Couldn't be helped.

Nothing is worse than somebody who desperately wants to prove their roots.

-- Virgil

All Over But The Bitching

Watching the Democratic primary has been like watching two cars trying to cause an accident with each other. In typical fashion, Yahoo has the story about Obama clinching the nomination while simultaneously running the story about how Hillary is not yet bowing out of the race withhout "consultation" from key people. Sweet mother of Dawkins, concede already.

I had nothing against Hillary; really I never cared for her one way or the other. Obama on the other hand really captures the imagination because of his ability to connect voters with what "might be" possible for their country. Is it possible to win on hope? It's been decades since politicians have framed things in positive ways. Far too often the thinly disguised power grab that is negative campaigning gets its way. Obama echoes much of the activist literature I've read and have my classes read--activist writers with diverse backgrounds whose only thing in common was the need to get up and do something about it instead of bitch. That's why I got into nonprofit--I got tired of bitching about problems.

I'm also impressed at the pragmatism that seems to be behind Obama's promises. For example, at a recent rally in Miami with Cuban Americans, Obama said his plan to help democracy come to Cuba involved "looser restrictions on travel to Cuba so Cuban-Americans can visit family members as well as allowing larger money transfers to the island." This is smart politics, because as American relatives are able to send more financial support to Cuban family members, said family members are not as dependent on the government for survival, which will help to loosen entrenched views of the US and the Cuban government. After all, it's not like embargoing their cigars for decades has done a damned bit of good. Right Officer Sanborn????

We voted in the May primary, and as usual I took Dante with me. This primary was the first I've ever voted in. As a registered independent, I don't normally get the chance to participate in a primary, and I appreciated that WV allowed me to do so this time around. I had to tell the poll worker which party I wanted to vote within and away we went. I always take Dante into the booth with me so he gets familiar with how voting machines work and so that he feels like voting is a normal part of life as he gets older. He was pretty juiced up about the election this time around, mainly because he's captivated by Obama, but also because the director of the Boys & Girls Club was running for County Commission, and the kids had been abuzz about that for weeks. Normally, I tell him who I'm voting for and I let him push the button. If there's a referendum on something, I try to explain in simple language what it is. I don't tell him which way I'm voting on it before the explanation, and interestingly we've always ended up agreeing on the vote. All of that must be working, because he asked me two or three times "When are we going to vote??"

When the machine pulled up the instructions, we read them together. The next page was the presidential candidate, and his finger shot out to jam the touch screen like those extra split seconds could make the difference in the winner. I thought he was going to tip the thing over. He sure wanted to make certain that vote went in there. We went through the bigger positions up for grabs locally, and he voted for his club's director, which wasn't really my personal choice but since it isn't a vital spot in this town, I let him have his way. Some of the smaller positions were full of nominees we'd never heard about. So I let him pick whoever he wanted. He mulled over the names as though some magical explanation would tell him who to vote for. It was pretty funny overall. We reviewed our choices and then he locked them in for us.

Later, of course, both his club director and Obama would lose West Virginia. Dante was a bit disappointed, but he understood it was a primary and that we may get to vote for him again in November. I think racism had something to do with it, but I also think that it had to do with the fact that we're heavily unionized in some areas, and she seems to do better with unions. At any rate, the whole experience was nice. Dante likes Obama because he is happy to see a black man competing at the top level of politics, but also because he looks like somebody who can do good things. I'm sure he's basing this on looks alone, which many people are prone to take as a sign of something anyway, but probably also on his tone. He doesn't look up when Hillary Clinton or McCain are talking, but his head snaps up when Obama's voice comes over the radio or on the TV. He stops what he's doing and he watches. And for Dante, that takes a lot.

At this point, I think the Clinton campaign needs to get over itself and cut its losses. There's plenty of talk that she'd love to be his VP, but I don't think that's a smart idea personally. I think he would do better with someone who hasn't been in the limelight for the past months taking a beating, telling silly lies about her experiences, etc. Quit the bitching and pack up already.

-- Virgil

Har. And I Thought *My* Snowflakes Were Special!

Sometimes students actually have legitimate complaints--not often, but it has been known to happen. The more amusing time seems to be reading/hearing whatever lame excuse they've come up with for screwing up. It usually consists of dead grandmothers, whose funerals/deaths cannot usually be verified. I've heard my fair share of bizarre excuses, but I've never gotten any threats. I believe that's because on the first day of class, I announce that anyone who'd like to try is welcome to bring it and watch how quickly that turns into a shitstorm. My syllabus is much more judiciously worded. But this poor prof got the full on mafia treatment--over a damn B-. (My paste below is taken from another blog--the link goes to the news story about it.)

B- prompts student to threaten PSU prof, police say

Rather than earning an "A" the old-fashioned way, a Penn State student tried to get one by threatening his professor with a wheelchair ride, according to police.

Something tells me Apostalo Michael Tsirogiannis, 20, of State College, was not going to be successful, even if Penn State police hadn't gotten involved.

When it comes to making friends and influencing people, threatening to cripple them is not going to endear you to anyone. Just my opinion.

Tsirogiannis drew the attention of police this weekend when the dean of the College of Business notified them of an e-mail sent to Visiting Assistant Professor Lukas Roth. In their complaint, police quoted the e-mail as saying thus:

"Lukas I am going to warn you one last chance I am going to ask I want better than a B-. If I see this on my elion account I swear to god I am going to (expletive) put you in a wheelchair when I see you. You will regret it and I don't care if they kick me out of school you cheated on the first test and I refuse to get cheated out of a letter grade. Don't (expletive) around you will pay trust me I don't care if I go jail as long as I put you in a wheelchair. Change the (expletive) grade you cheater. All I ask is you change the grade and that is it I will leave you alone. Don't be a (female dog) you better respond back."

And with those brave words, Tsirogiannis was hauled before District Justice Jonathan Grine and arraigned on misdemeanor charges of terroristic threats and harassment.

Tsirogiannis later told police he sent the e-mail, but did so because he worked really hard and thought he deserved better than a B-, according to a criminal complaint.

Isn't the grammar lovely?? Kind of makes you wonder why old boy even got a B- with sterling prose like that. I'm still a little too young and hot headed to have turned something over promptly to the police like that. I would've been sooo tempted to hit "reply" and fire something back like:

"Dear Dicklick. I figured it would come to this. Let's save you the time you'll spend stalking me down and meet at my office tomorrow at 10:00. Or we can make it 2:00 if your ass can't roll out of bed that soon, seeing as class was terribly hard for you to attend. You bring your wheelchair-maker. I'll bring my boredom. Looking forward to it like you wouldn't begin to know."

It's a good thing I have several layers of management to answer to, I guess. But an email like that would've pissed me right off proper.

-- Virgil