Billy Morrison's diary entry about the Cult show in DeKalb is posted on The Cult's website after a scant week. No mention of Like Hell, alas...no mention either of me. That's low, guys. After all those late-night phone calls:

Billy Duffy: I'm just not sure how to open this particular song, mate. Should I do the solo first? Or should I wait until the crowd is good and drunk before dazzling them with my incredibly talented fingerplay?
Me: Oh, don't worry about that. In DeKalb, the tough job is finding someone sober.
Billy: Ah. Good point.

Got a call from the temp agency yesterday while scouring the stores of DeKalb--looks like I'll have work by Wednesday (with John, no less). Means I'll have to squeeze in some more vacation time. I spent a good couple of hours e-mailing schools abroad and making a list of the materials I need to get together. Dr. Bag has sent his letter of rec--I don't know about the others.

All presents are finally wrapped for today. This is the part of the season where I actually get into the spirit a little. I figure, at this point, the credit card maxed and the car's gas tank empty, all the damage has been done. Time to bask in the glow of my relatives' grattitude upon receiving their carefully-chosen gifts:

Dad:Oh, uh, thank you, Gregg. An electric nosehair trimmer...three feet long. You shouldn't have.
Me: It was nothing.
Dad: I know. That's what I mean. You really shouldn't have.
Me: Look, it comes with its own ripcord. They have a way of tearing apart, you know.
Bryan: (Opens present) Gosh, I was just saying to myself the other day that it was about time for another snow globe to put in my bedroom.
Me: This one has a miniature of Ru Paul singing "Little Drummer Boy."
Bryan: How do you turn it off?
Me: I think that switch is broken. But it's still a great present, right? It'll drown out the noise from the city streets outside.
Bryan: Yeah, it's much better than the one you bought last year. The neon "Live Nude Girls Here" light kept burning out in the globe's water.
Dad: Why do you always wrap your presents in old Dollar Store plastic bags?
Me: No reason.
Bryan: And why do you leave the receipts taped to the gifts? That's kind of rude, don't you think?
Me: Oh, how did those get there? My mistake.
Bryan: Mistake? The price is circled in red!
Dad: And you've totalled the prices up and compared them with our gifts to you. Isn't that a bit rude?
Me: No, rude is the belch I'm about to emit, on account of the several gallons of alcohol I've managed to squirrel from your liquor cabinet in the last half hour.

The cat, unfortunately, will not be joining us this year, but since Kim and I have Christmas Eve together, maybe we can give him some presents to rip apart with his teeth or something...what's left of them, anyway. (The presents, that is--not the teeth)

Had a strange dream that a reindeer with a weak kidney found my Christmas stocking. Woke in a cold sweat, screaming and raving...until I remembered I don't have a Christmas stocking. My dumb cat (who was himself once a Christmas present, albeit a reluctant one) found my closet with his weak kidney some time ago, so I guess it all balances out.

The Cult in DeKalb

The show was incredible. We got there about eight and couldn't sit still for the anticipation--even Dewey, who had a cold from hell, found himself getting charged up with a half hour to go before the show. We had to sit through two bar fights, three beers apiece and a putrid opening act called Like Hell (as in "We play music...like hell; we can fill a bar with fans...like hell") whose rhythm and guitar really wasn't all that bad but whose lead singer looked like a reject from a Bad Eighties Band Reunion Tour. Tso claims he got heckled off the stage, but I'm not so sure--he seemed a bit oblivious to the crowd control going on:

Singer: Hey, that was "I'll Fuck Ya!" Hope ya liked it. How y'all doing today?
Heckler: Fuck you!
Singer: Great, great. They love us in Annapolis--I didn't think the Midwest would be any different!

I got news for you, you Ned Beatty-lookalike-in-a-bad-way--it is.

When The Cult finally came on, they used what I thought was the battle call for the Gungans in Star Wars: Episode I, but now I'm not sure--it could have come from some Native American reference, knowing Astbury. For posterity, I've preserved their playlist here (thanks to Mick, who snatched a taped copy off the sound guy in a fit of drunken bravery):

"Rise"
"Lil' Devil"
"Peace Dog"
"Rain"
"American Gothic"
"Take the Power"
"Edie"
"The Witch"
"Ashes & Ghosts"
"True Believers"
"Wild Flower"
"Fire Woman"
"She Sells Sanctuary"
encore at this point, where I scream myself hoarse yelling "Get back on stage you fucking limeys!"
"War"
"Sun King"
"Love Removal Machine"

Kim claimed that it took Astbury three songs to get warmed up, but I'm of the opinion that he hit some difficulty with the sound guy--I saw him (the sound guy, that is) scrambling wildly with the controls at one point, during which Astbury's voice was heard, then not heard, then not heard again. The sound guy was probably drunk, or maybe it had to do with that blonde in the mini-skirt who climbed out from underneath his desk wiping her mouth disgustedly. (I had a balcony seat, you understand.)

Astbury was the height of hilarity: "I was a little worried when I came through town," he commented after congratulating the crowd on our "soul" and "passion." I never did learn what he saw that worried him so--maybe the degutted East Lagoon or something. When songs like "Peace Dog" and "Edie" came on, I found myself abandoning the album version of the song ("Baby-baby-ba-ba-ba-baby-eeeahhh!") for what Astbury would manage to sing in a crowded, smoky bar ("Baby-ugh.") I've only seen three Cult concerts in as many years, and I'm already starting to forget the original versions and remember the live versions.

All of my vigor for the band couldn't be matched by Mick, who went down to the floor to cheer and yell, and cop a feel too, for all I know. Guess I'm getting old.

After that, drinks underground, followed by a bit of Matt's party, followed by a bite to eat at ATC. I didn't get to bed until 5:30 a.m. or so and then woke up early, around 10:30, thinking I would eventually crash and sleep, but I never did. Kim and I went to a Christmas party in Sycamore and I got even drunker off six or seven bottles of Killians than I did after four or five monster-beers at Otto's.

Watched Billy Madison today (stupid movie) and Affliction yesterday afternoon (haunting). Now I've finally got to finish the grading I've been putting off all weekend, pick up some Vitamin K tablets for Kim (she smashed her fingers on a windowsill looking for some dumb bird or mouse that we keep hearing) and maybe scare up a copy of Jedi Power Battles or something. Tomorrow I've got to look for a job.

Dumb Quote of the Day

taken from Fade to Black

"People think modeling is mindless, that you just stand there and pose, but it doesn't have to be that way. I like to have a lot of input. I know how to wear a dress, whether it should be short with me standing up or sitting down. And I am not scared to say what I think."

Supermodel Linda Evangelista commenting on her job


"I really don't feel comfortable earning $50,000 with a shot like this. Maybe I should spread my hands wider."

Final Exams Rant

What is the world coming to when I have to worry about finals?

So it's finally come to this. I walk out of the classroom, errant pen in hand, a dazed look on my face, feeling like I just stepped under a city bus. Behind me, the professor clutches a stack of exams, cackling madly as s/he dashes up to their solitary prison cell to mark my paper up with Slavic runes for death and decay, and thus determine my academic reputation for the next three weeks.

Mick strolls out of the classroom, a confident look on his face. "I nailed that one where he asked for your name," he said breezily. "Did you?"

Wiggo storms up and down the hall, hands in the air in the demeanor of a prizefighter, chanting: "I came, I saw, I fled, I cried, I drank, I took the class again."

I stand in the hallway, still clutching my pen as if it were Excalibur or something, trying to remember whether I managed to convey, in my first essay, whether or not rhetoric was something you had to use words with, or whether you could just do it in mime. Behind me, the desk I was sitting at is standing in a puddle I fervently wish were water...but it isn't.

Andrew walked by, clapping me on the shoulder. "Well, there's always next year," he said philosophically, and as he said those words, I realized that I'd spent the past four months denying the possibility of a next year. For me, there is no next year, or next weekend, or even next half-hour, that won't contain the memory of opening up that exam, reading the first question, and feeling an overpowering urge to raise my hand and ask if "I'm a Rhetorical Dolt" t-shirts will be provided by the professor, or whether we'll all have to pool our money and buy them together.

To use a more appropriate metaphor, you're not thinking about the next dive off the diving board when you're plummeting towards an empty pool filled with broken beer bottles and rusty nails. Consequently, the thought of returning to a Schmetoric class, or any class a year from now, simply isn't a viable factor in my discourse model.

How funny. All these wonderful higher-level summations of the situation, and yet I still managed to turn in an exam my cat probably wouldn't even pee on, much less read.

I never thought the day would come where I would enter a classroom, take an exam, and find everybody outside after it was all over, comparing war wounds or something. It was putrid. It was absolutely atrocious. It was scratching and clawing to get main points out of those puppies. I did fine on the schmetorical definitions, but that first essay felt more like a freshman composition on modern-day advertising than a graduate-level essay on modern trends in rhetorical thought.

My Tuesday final wasn't much better (though I suppose it was a little better, at least, marginally so). Since half of it was multiple choice, even the worst student in the world can guess, and I didn't find it necessary to guess at most of them (95% of them, I'd say). Later questions I hedged on a bit--I kept directly addressing the professor who wrote the questions rather than the questions themselves:

Question: You meet me in the hallway and I tell you you got half of the exam questions right. Later on, you find you got all of them right. Explain the implications of my comment to you in terms of Allan's conventional implicatures.
Answer: You know damn well I didn't get all of these right. I can tell by the look on your face that you're going to whip out "Old Red" and go to town on this puppy with glee.
Question: How would you write the term "It's a wonderful life" with the language of predicate logic?
Answer: Why are you doing this to me? Is this why you grew your hair long--to hide the 666? This is all about that bag of flaming dung I left on your porch step, isn't it? You can't prove that was me, damn it. Lots of paper bags are marked "Gregg Long" these days.

The only redeeming factor left is that a) I am now done with final exams (the first exams I've taken since 1997, come to think of it), and b) I can now unleash all this repressed outrage and insubordination onto my freshmen:

Student: Like, I don't have my final exam paper ready yet. I got in a car accident and lost a leg--
Me: Well you've still got your arms, don't you? This is college, damn it!
Student: But the massive loss of blood has resulted in a loss of perspicacity.
Me: Well, there's always next year.

Oh, but the hits keep on coming. I keep envisioning my future job interview, where the prospective employer looks over my resume steadily: "Yes, very nice...teaching experience, uh-huh...Master's Degree, right...Wait a minute, what's this Rhetoric exam your professor attached to your transcript?...You mean, you actually thought the central message behind Giambattista Vico's "Study Methods" was 'I never said anything about rhetoric leading to a Cartesian sense of truth--this is all about being able to pick up broads!'?"

For the annals of history in rhetoric:

---

The Rhetorical Appeals of Phone Sex

Logos:
Woman: Um, this really isn't going too well. I don't feel comfortable.
Man: Yes you do. You're loving every minute of this. First of all, I've still got you on the line, right? If it were that bad, you would have hung up by now. Right?
Woman: (hesitantly) Yes...
Man: So I must be doing something right.
Woman: That's true.

Pathos
Woman: I want you to make me scream. I want you to make me yell and lose control.
Man: All right. I slept with your sister.
Woman: What?
Man: I also used to be a woman myself. See these razor burns and stretch marks?
Woman: (screams incoherently)
Man: Mission accomplished.

Ethos:
Man: I'm the best.
Woman: No you're not. I've had better.
Man: My experience is extensive. I first had phone sex on a Fisher Price phone when I was eight years old with Sally Hayes from next door. After that, we had to use tin cans with a connecting wax string, but I still got her going.
Woman: Wow, you must have been very creative.
Man: Yes, I was. So you see, your perceptions of my ability are clouded by some internal issue.

---

Well, I've got to study for this exam somehow.

Finished my Semantics paper, and Melina is being a dork. But that's nothing new. As I type this, she's peering over my shoulder, trying to read it and type up a grammar exam. If she doesn't stop reading soon, I may have to kill her.

I even managed to go out drinking last night, where, once again, Wiggo laid on me the wonders of the European lifestyle. "You get money, broads and social diseases...I mean social life. Hey, don't write that part down!" We bowled like dynamite--all our scores were well over our averages, which made our final 10th place standing a bit more bearable. But only a bit. I had to get up early today (8:45 a.m.) after slaving away on the computer until 3 a.m. over this damned paper, but it was worth it. Now all I have to worry about are the two exams, and since I don't have any lessons to prep, or even any papers to grade, I can focus no sweat. I do still have to type up the final exam, but I can turn that in tomorrow if I have to.

Melina's still trying to read this. I give her five minutes to stop, and then I'll have to kill her.

For some reason, for the past week, I've been getting a slew of dating e-mails designed for women...Christmas shopping tips aimed at women ("Here's what I buy my husband to drive him crazy; you too, Gregg, can do the same for yours."), and Viagra ads...for the woman. "Gregg, is your man having a hard time 'rising to the occasion?' Well it's not your fault--he's an old fart. Get him some Viagra and, if you can handle his calling you by the name of whatever Penthouse Pet is currently on his nightstand, you'll have a sex life that'll beat hell out of Jeffrey the Shower Massage and fantasies of the gardener down the street. Only $19.95." Maybe Kim put me on a mailing list or something. Maybe she's trying to tell me something. Maybe all those women's cries of "You're the king, baby!" really were congratulations for remembering to take the garbage out.

Nah. I'm a stud. Now if I could only get someone to tighten this corset for me.

BTW: Melina left on the one-second mark. So I'll have to kill her later.

IGN and Radio Free Reviews both confirm (as does ImDb) that Liam Neeson will be playing Father Merrin in Exorcist 4:1 (formerly sub-titled The Dominion). I'm fired up for it--I know fully well that it won't stack up to the original, but I don't really care at this point. I'm just looking forward to seeing Neeson get puked at by a ten-year-old boy. Here's his chance to stretch his versatility.

Just heard the stupidest exchange between two graduate students (a term beginning to mean, for me, lately, "whiny self-indulgent mortgager of the real world"):

Whiny Student #1: My stupid husband just yelled at me for not checking the oil in the car when I filled up yesterday. Says it's bad for the engine and blah blah blah.
Whiny Student #2: God, how insenstive.
Whiny Student #1: I know! I tried to tell him: "Hey, why don't you try to get your MA and raise kids at the same time!"
Whiny Student #2: If I were you, I'd be late with the McNuggets tonight. Make him wait.

Bear in mind that Whiny Student #1 had been surfing the Internet all day (maybe doing literature-related surfing, true, but such a distinction isn't going to mean much here). Bear in mind also that a) it's her husband's car, not hers, and b) her kids were in day care until 3 p.m. at which point she leaves work early to go get them and dumps them in the living room to play Nintendo while she does her homework.

I don't want to keep hearing this stuff. I'm just a fly on the wall, subjected to diatribe after diatribe of idiocy. Deep inside I'm afraid I'll turn into one of these creatures, but every so often I'm reassured. Why? Because a) whenver I shirk responsibilities, I own up to it, and b) I rarely read the required books in the first place.

The Seven Literary Wonders Of The World according to the editors of Penguin Books (as recounted in a recent Guardian Unlimited Books review:

Cervantes - Don Quixote Part I
Dante - Hell
Goethe - Faust
Tolstoy - Anna Karenina
Flaubert - Madame Bovary
Virgil - The Aeneid
Homer - The Odyssey

My point of personal pride is that I own most of these books. My point of personal shame is that I've only read some of them (Dante, Homer and parts of Goethe, whose name I still can't say because I'm functionally illiterate). Here are the Top 10 Contenders For the Eighth Literary Wonder:

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre
John Bunyan - Pilgrim's Progress
Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights
Geoffrey Chaucer - Canterbury Tales
George Eliot - Middlemarch
James Joyce - Ulysses
John Milton - Paradise Lost
William Shakespeare - Hamlet, King Lear

Here, my shame is considerably less: I've read five of these, but was assigned to read them all in one class or another (except for Pilgrim's Progress, which I've never been able to finish). If anyone cares, Hamlet won--a decision I am more than comfortable with. However: why isn't an American work up yet? You'd think Moby Dick (my personal choice) or maybe The Scarlet Letter would have been considered, given their breadth of effect and impact on American culture. How about The Grapes of Wrath for crying out loud?

They definitely should have considered Huck Finn. Maybe it's because, as Bag says, our measly 300 years of history isn't enough to stack up to the rest of the European, WCP-dominated literary works flooding the market.