Another stinking trip to the doctor...

It's like going to Confession. I'm not Catholic. Never have been. But I watch a lot of Hitchcock, so I have an idea of what goes on in the confession booth. And I really don't see the difference:

SETTING: Closed, windowless room. I am wearing a smock, which rhymes uncomfortably close with "frock." I'm shivering in the cold, fluorescent light. I feel exposed. I feel dirty. I feel imperfect. I feel, in short, like a devout Catholic.

DOCTOR: (entering) Well, what seems to be the problem?
ME: Well, see, I've got this back problem. It, uh, it has been many years since my last physical.
DOC: How long?
ME: About four years.
DOC: And you're only coming in now?
ME: No, see, I've been to other doctors. But they couldn't help me.
DOC: What did they diagnose you with?
ME: I...can't really remember.
DOC: Well, good thing we've got it on computer file. (Looks it up.) They diagnosed you with atrophied muscles and a poor overall physical condition. What have you been doing about it?
ME: Why, everything they've told me to, sir.
DOC: Don't lie to me, boy. You'll tempt the wrath of medical science. You been stretching like they told you to?
ME: (raising my arms like a Chicken Dance) Woo. See?
DOC: Cutting down on the drinking?
ME: Yep. Frigging bar closes a half hour earlier Monday nights, so...
DOC: Vegetables? Fiber? Vitamins?
ME: Those are all things you can buy at the supermarket, I'm told.
DOC: I'm going to diagnose you with imbecility. Your penance is six Hail Marys and a swift kick in the ass.
ME: But I'm getting prescription painkillers, right?
DOC: God yes. A whole bucketful.
ME: (assuming the position) I knew there was a reason choir boys keep going back for more...

A Second Look at The Grapes of Wrath

Reread this book as part of Roselle's Banned Books Week and just could not put it down. You've undoubtedly heard of Steinbeck's epic story of the Joads, Oklahoma farmers turned out of the Midwest by the Great Dust Bowl who travel west to California to find work only to face prejudice, low wages, tyranny, starvation and, for some, death. The book won the Pulitzer in 1940 and was made into an acclaimed film starring Henry Fonda. The narrative is on the scale of Moby Dick (some lucky s.o.b. has probably already compared the two works--I'll get to it someday); the style is fluid and engrossing; the allusions abound. As Peter Lisca wrote in 1958, Grapes "was a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national radio hook-ups; but above all, it was read."

Confession: Yes, I gave a copy of this book to Matt in 1999. Yes, I was advocating Marxism. Trust me when I tell you, I'd never read Marx or Lenin or Trotsky, and didn't know I was advocating Marxism. I only thought I was trying to open a pair of eyes to the stark realities of the world's evil: "Look, you dimwit, see what happened in those camps? See how a bunch of farmers starved next to fertile farmland? Acknowledge my wisdom on the subject, shit-for-brains!"

Well, that's over and done with. I have since paid the price for my deeply-held naivete and nascent socialism with many a booze-laced lecture on macroeconomic theory and history in many a Manhattan bar. I have been humbled. I have been given my own copies of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman. And when teaching Grapes, or any other early-twentieth century work of literature, I always preface it with, "Take the politics with a grain of salt."

And yet, shifting away from my own sad story and Matt's desperate attempts to educate me, I think it's a mistake to write off Steinbeck as "socialist," and therefore "unreliable," "biased," or any of those icky, undesirable pejoratives currently applied to anyone on the left who argues for reform. Sure, Steinbeck was a socialist. He hobnobbed with Lincoln Steffens. He networked through Francis Whittaker. He was pro-union. He's not exactly subtle about this, either: Grapes of Wrath gets tiresome sometimes with his preaching the necessity of organization. (I don't mind preachiness, but I prefer when authors don't carry theirs out with a megaphone.)

No question about his political affiliations. But then, he also researched life in the Hoovervilles firsthand. He saw the strikebreaking. He witnessed the starvation, the deprivation, the cruelty. He saw the needs of the poor unacknowledged. If anything, according to most scholars across the ideological spectrum, he downplayed all of it in his novel. For example, in one of his articles on conditions in a migrant camp, he uses imagery and language that couldn't have gone easily past any editor of the time:

"There is more filth here. The tent is full of flies clinging to the apple box that is the dinner table, buzzing about the foul clothes of the children, particularly the baby, who has not been bathed nor cleaned for several days. This family has been on the road longer than the builder of the paper house. There is no toilet here, but there is a clump of willows nearby where human faeces lie exposed to the flies - the same flies that are in the tent."
--"Death in the Dust," available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/feb/02/johnsteinbeck.socialsciences.

And that's not even getting into the violence and murder against vagrants, organizers and the like. Economic theory and hard-core politics must be considered when contemplating Steinbeck's thesis, but such niceties would hardly register with the Joads. The causes of the Great Depression were complex. But what would that matter to a woman trying to keep the flies in the filth from the weeds off her baby? What would it matter to Ma Joad when she can't get Rose of Sharon milk? Or soap for her kids to keep clean? Finding a place for your family to sleep without drowning is also complex.

So, keeping the clangs of literary Historicism and New Criticism in mind, let me offer my own argument on how to read this book today: Steinbeck is telling us that the people are the answer. Yes, they may organize and form unions (I should point out that I'm a card-carrying member of the NEA myself). Yes, they may strike, they may agitate. But the farmers who come at all close to survival do so by banding together. When one is sick, others pitch in to help. When a child dies, a mountain of coins are left outside the mother's tent to bury her. When children play, they must cooperate with each other, or the game falls apart; when a job becomes available, workers must spread the word, even if it means their own wages and prospects will thin.

In short, we're to think of the group. There's no Orwellian Man Behind the Screen deciding how best to ration jobs, food and drinking water. The people are Big Brother. And I see little in the history of any oppression you can name to contradict the argument that, when the downtrodden function together, they tend to make out better.

Probably, implementing such a system of "be nice to each other" is pure fantasy. I don't believe so, but then, I didn't study political science. My doctor tells me I have to cut down on the red meat; I don't believe it will make me live any longer, but then I remember I didn't go to medical school. Whatever. I am an English teacher though, one who subscribes, however sheepishly, to the notion of Literature as Catharsis. As such, I'm fully capable of drawing a line in the sand between my ideals (things that may or may not be possible, but nevertheless must be strived towards) and reality (John Q. Citizen doesn't like being told he's stupid or oppressing the poor, especially when he's stupid and oppressing the poor, and votes). You cling to your ideals and acknowledge reality. But to scream, "Steinbeck is corrupting his readers!" or "Libelist! Red! Liar!" is reactionary, demagogic, and small-minded in the 21st century.

(Not that people are lining up to urinate on Grapes like they were when it first came out. But just stick your head in a town hall meeting these days and it doesn't take long to see a correlation.)

When asked in a recent intervew by Bill Maher for a new metaphor that would come in handy in today's world, Bill Moyers instantly replied, "We're all in the same boat." That's Steinbeck's novel in a nutshell. It was true then. It's true today. And any book that stumbles on the truth, from whatever direction, deserves our study and attention.

From this month's Utne:

The General Social Survey, a periodic assessment of Americans’ moods and values, shows an 11-point decline from 1976 to 2008 in the number of Americans who believe other people can generally be trusted. Institutions haven’t fared any better. Over the same time period, trust has declined in the press (from 29 to 9 percent), education (38 to 29 percent), banks (41 percent to 20 percent), corporations (23 to 16 percent), and organized religion (33 to 20 percent). Gallup’s 2008 governance survey showed that trust in the government was as low as it was during the Watergate era.

So the media took the biggest bath in the wake of a political scandal (reported on by the media), whereas education comes out just slightly ahead of religion (in the wake of Catholic sex abuse scandals). I don't really know what this reveals about John Q. Citizen and his notions of what's trustworthy or not. I do know it's not reassuring about John Q. Citizen, though.

How to Propose Marriage

Like most financially strapped, psychologically unstable, manic-depressive suburbanites, you're probably contemplating getting hitched. Which means you have to propose to her. (Or propose to him, since, as I've been told, women are now allowed to approach men as equals. Whatever that's about.) Regardless, you now have to ask the woman of your dreams to spend the rest of your life with her in wedded bliss and with a deficit-inducing middle income tax hike. This means you'll have to find the right words with which to deliver your proposal, words that will moisten her eyes, excite her passion and cripple her common sense.

Of course, since you're not me, your proposal is, without question, lame and stupid, with all the romance of a piece of fish left under a car seat overnight. No matter. Select a proposal from one of the following templates, and get ready to enjoy a matrimony which will, based on actuarial tables, weight and true sexual preference, will last 12.3 years before she leaves you for a tax accountant. Congratulations!

#1. Proposal Through Mime

Me: (elaborate pantomime of grace and beauty)

Her: (watching)I'm sorry, I don't understand...you're in a box? You're finding the door? You're choking in the box and you can't get out? A door...in front of me? I don't get it.

Me: That's because you're stupid. Anyway, let's get married.

#2. The Magic of Puppet Theater

Dexter, the Hand-Lover: Hey Kim! It's a real good idea if you marry Gregg!

Her: That's not a puppet. It's just a sock with a mouth painted on it in White-Out.

Me: Yeah, but since I think I've got you cold anyway, I didn't really feel a need to put a lot of effort into this.

#3. The Sublimity of Haiku

Me: The woman of my dreams/ Is off to France as we speak/ How bout you instead?

Her: I'm hungry. What are you making for dinner?

Me: A wedding imminent,/ Or one that is eminent?/ Whatever. Wed me.

Her: Are you getting these off those fortune cookies there?

Me: Hackneyed poetry/ Stirs the intellectual/ But not a dumbass.

#4. Lexical and Syntactic Diagramming of Proposals 101

Me: If 'you' is the object of the verb phrase 'wants to marry you,' then what is the noun phrase that functions as a subject?

Her: I have an English degree, you jackass.

Me: What's the subject?

Her: ...Thunder Rod.

Me: And which word is the adjective?

Her: Conjugate this. (obscene gesture)

Me: ...That will be all for today.

#5. Use a Word Problem

Me: Gregg is traveling from Chicago to the Star Trek Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas in a car going 65 mph over a distance of 1,752 miles while Kim is hitchhking from Phoenix, at a distance of 296 miles. Gregg's car is low on oil and in general shoddy condition, which hampers his rate of progress by 15 percent incrementally. Meanwhile, Kim is wearing her 'Love me for my mind' outfit, and so will manage to catch a ride averaging 15 miles from every third passer-by. If Gregg leaves his destination at 10:27 a.m. Wednesday after downing two pints of vodka, and Kim leaves hers at 7 a.m. the preceding day wearing high heels, what time and date will their wedding take place?

Her: That depends. Will there be pie?

Me: I guess...

Her: Right after the pie is gone, then.

More about the Citizen Patriot another day. I'm constantly bemused by their editorials. Yesterday's, for example: Congress wanted to pass a bill lining up successors to House members in case of a full-on attack on the Capitol. The editorial calls this "arcane" and says, "to date, last we checked, this hasn't happened." Sure. Like, on Sept. 10, the Pentagon hadn't been hit by a plane. Archaic. That's a hoot. I must shut up now, or I'll never run out of steam.

Dry Shakespeare

JACKSON, MI--Going to a play by the Bard cold. It's been a while.

Normally, before partaking of the culture that is the Michigan Shakespeare festival, I read the plays beforehand. That is, if I'm not familiar with them/teach them/seen movie versions of them/ bored others to death with my renditions of them. Once, I saw Pericles dry, and had no earthly clue what was going on. Ditto Cymbeline, to a point.

Last night, it was As You Like It. I think I did okay. (It's about two guys in love, right? ...Just kidding.)

The true treat of these plays is in their performance, sure enough. Unless it's something like Hamlet, which, I'm sorry, is impossible to enjoy for a casual theatergoer without an intimate familiarity. Otherwise, why would you care about a single word he says? You'd be shouting from the seats, "Kill the jerk already! My babysitter has to get home at nine!" A fair criticism, to be sure--the comedies, however, in my opinion, are tedious to read. You need a performance to liven things up, to interject feeling and timing into the humor, nuance, facial expressions, physical violence, pratfalls, the scatological, etc. And last night's crew did this to decided success.

The true test of the performance: Do I want to go back and read the play? I do. The Citizen Patriot had a point about the staging and early scenes and music, much though I hate to admit it. But I can forgive such techniques in the face of, off the top of my head, Rosalind's (Jennifer Drew) sheer strength of performance. Watching her snap, "Woo me!" in male guise to the bemused Orlando was worth the price of admission alone.

Lines of poetry written while stuck on the subway en route to Brooklyn at 4 a.m. because I met Wiggo in Williamsburg and am getting back to Bay Ridge where I will sleep on a hardwood floor on shards of broken glass

The city sleeps well
But I, on this coffin car of death
Hate all equally

Fuck you, Mr. Chips.

Fuck you, Mr. Chips. And fuck your fucking life story.

You had it rough, I grant you. New, apple-cheeked, fresh-faced go-getter arriving at a new school, nervous about discipline. You gave a troublemaker 100 lines to copy after misbehaving, and then had no troubles after that. You bemoan the loss of the boys' friendship; it's the only part of the triumvirate of "respect, obedience and love" that you're missing? Fuck you.

You teach Latin grammar? Dead languages? With no standardized tests to worry about? Fuck you.

You get a hot new wife and she teaches you to be loved? And you're an overnight sensation? Fuck you.

You continue teaching, without worrying about administrators breathing down your neck concerning relevance, learning standards and the like? Fuck you.

You retire and live on school premises, with a woman to cook for you and look after you? Fuck you.

You come back as headmaster in reduced capacity? Fuck you.

You die happy? Fuck you.

You wouldn't last ten minutes in today's schools, Mr. Chips. Conjugate those verbs, asshole.

Why I will not go to a bar with half-nude waitresses (more than one or two dozen more times)

Head out to Woodale, and there's not much there. A theater, some overpriced restaurants, a ridiculously small amount of parking, and The Tilted Kilt, a bar trying to pass itself off as Irish the way Hooter's tries to pass itself off as Where-you-can-get-a-good-burger-while-incidentally-ogling-women.

Don't get me wrong--I've got nothing against ogling women. The waitresses at the Kilt wear, for the record, white stockings, short kilts and stomach-less white tops, and I am this close to mandating such a dress code for every outdoor summer festival in town. But even I have my limits. The Kilt, while sporting plentiful eye candy and a variety of Guinness-themed beers, just isn't doing it for me any more. I've only been there a handful of times (like ten or fifty), but like a good soldier, I keep making the half-hour drive out there to see if I can get comfortable with the ambience, the blaring jukebox, the half-tanked fratboys high-fiving each other. And I just can't do it. For reasons I can explain quite succinctly:

The waitresses act like strippers, but they're not strippers. When a scantily-clad woman sits down next to you in a place where alcohol and loud music are prevalent, starts making conversation about your pathetic life, and keeps her eye on the clock, she's either finagling for a tip, trying to elicit a request for a lap dance, or already married to you and enacting some weird role-playing fantasy you cooked up in a weekend marriage seminar. And I'm not good at pretending with stuff like this. When a waitress sat down next to me last weekend and asked how work was going, she visibly flinched when I produced a dollar bill and waved it in her face seductively. That kind of reality I can do without.



The waitresses could be trouble. I'm sure they're legal and everything, but still, young is young, and I don't want to be that Old Guy in the Bar. I'm not that old, but compared to a roomful of undergraduates, I might as well be collecting Social Security. When you can make lewd comments and get away with it, you know it's time to pack it up--only guys who could conceivably carry out such lascivious threats are taken seriously. Besides, you never know these days. The girls could be under eighteen, and I'm a man of values. I wouldn't touch them if they were a day below...twenty-one. Nor would I sit next to them, stroke their legs lightly, yank their hair or drink salted tequila off their flat, toned, tanned stomachs. Not me, sir. No chance.

They don't sell the waitress' outfits. Not that I'd buy one. Or buy one and leave it hanging in the closet. Or feign surprise when the little lady found it. Or feign surprise, get her drunk and dress her up in it. It's just a matter of principle.



There's a reputation that goes with frequenting a place like this. Guilt by association, I'd call it. To paraphrase Ed McBain, if you frequent a whorehouse with a really good magazine rack, you're not going to be known as someone with highbrow literary tastes. You're going to be known as a guy who likes a cheap piece of tail. And if you come out of the Kilt, staggering at two in the morning, they're not going to know about all the historical inaccuracies you pointed out in their menu to anyone who would listen all night ("Braveheart was Scottish, but Michael Collins was Irish and Falstaff was English. What kind of dump is this, anyway?"). They're going to call you a slightly creepy perv. And if they're right, so much the better to give them less to work with.

Today: born one niece of yours truly. Avery Jane (name censored), seven pounds, eleven ounces and 22 inches long. All are healthy. She already rocks. This kid will be the Emily Donelson to my Andrew Jackson. Look up the reference yourselves, dimwits.

Missed my opportunity to do something momentous and trivial today:

When the clock hits 34 minutes and 56 seconds past noon today (7/8/09), the time and date together will be 123456789.
Source: Politico.com

Things Sarah Palin can do now that she's resigned from the office of Alaska governor

Kill something with her big gun

Practice Tina Fey impersonation

Find a mirror to start rehearsing speeches in front of

Learn how to use "Find" function in e-mail (as in, Find: "Hire my husband, damn you"), so she can fork over records for those pesky news agencies

Begin rigorous, impassioned reading of Middle East, Russian and American history.

Find alternative phrases for "you betcha"

Look up Wikiarticles on Adam Smith to find out why she supports free markets

Find Levi and beat him to a pulp

Get her book ghostwritten. Crowd aspiring writers out of the literary marketplace

Granted, I should know better. Ten bucks shelled out to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The last one was loud, incoherent, annoying and pubescent, not to mention an almost desperate attempt to recruit people to the military. The next one was even worse.

But it wasn't my ten bucks. It was Reed's.

Suckah!

What better way to cap off the month of June, I ask you. Summers past, I had movies to drool over and look forward to. Some speak to a desperate need for better taste on my part (Gone in Sixty Seconds, the 2000 version; X-Men and all its sequels; The Blair Witch Project, probably many others I can't recall now). Lately, the closest thing to a "summer blockbuster" I've seen in the multiplex lately has been Wolverine. It was good, but I miss the old days of Indiana Jones.

I can't take the recommendations any more. "Oh, go see The Hangover--it's good, mindless fun." "Come on, you know you want to go see Night at the Museum 2--it's fun." "What the hell, does everything you see have to make you think? Can't you just loosen up and enjoy a movie?"

I can. And do. But this is ten bucks we're talking about here.

And since when did movies that make you think get turned into the cinematic equivalent of a trip to the dentist's office? Seeing something like Smart People (ho-hum, by the way) or the eventual remake of Taras Bulba isn't like studying for the bar exam. I take comfort in the fact that such films exist in today's sugar cereal, ADHD consumer demand. Though, to judge by all the guffaws I heard when watching Transformers, such films won't be around much longer.

Here are a few lines from Michael Bay's latest hyperkinetic, visual mess that, despite its level of crapdom (I actually had to cover my eyes during every romance scene between the two stars--the acting was that bad), had the audience rolling on the floor:

TOUGH SOLDIER: We about to get our asses whupped.

STUPID BLACK-STEREOTYPE ROBOT: It's an ass-whuppin. It's supposed to hurt.

YOUNG COMPUTER GEEK: Oh my God! We're all gonna die!

OLDER COMPUTER GEEK: I am now right below the monster's scrotum.

YOUNG COMPUTER GEEK: Oh my God! I don't wanna die!

Once again, a classic has been pissed and stomped upon. I'd say it couldn't get any worse, but look what's coming out in August: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. I don't even want to speculate on what lines will screw up that franchise too.

Weekend Baby-Sitting Schedule

Saturday

10:15 a.m. Brother gives directions for weekend
10:45 a.m. Brother finishes directions
12:00 p.m. Brother's wife arrives, countermands all directions and gives them again
12:15 p.m. They leave. Brother's parting words: "Stay out of my booze."
2:30 p.m. Nephew wakes up from nap. Wants to watch TV. I oblige.
2:45 p.m. Uncle (me) wants to watch more TV. Nephew says it's time to do something else.
3:15 p.m. Nephew wants puzzles. I provide Suduko; he complains about its redundancy.
3:30 p.m. Nephew beats me two games to one.
3:31 p.m. "How about we watch TV instead?"
4 p.m.-5 p.m. Nephew colors abstract pictures; I try to break the lock on brother's liquor cabinet.
5:15 p.m. Dinner time. Little eaten. Most of it used by nephew to decorate face and shampoo hair instead.
5:30 p.m. Successfully pick liquor cabinet lock. Nephew, to celebrate, has another glass of juice.
5:45-6:45 p.m. I fill nephew in on facts of life over our bottles, dwelling particularly on the GOP, global warming, children's television and the remaining problems with No Child Left Behind. He takes the news well.
7-8 p.m. Story time. Girlfriend shows up and reads him Fast Food Nation.
8 p.m.-6:30 a.m. Sunday Nephew sleeps. I don't remember what we did.

Sunday

6:45-7:30 a.m. TV and breakfast. Nephew eats quite a bit of cereal and fruit, then watches Barney and Friends. Girlfriend and I are unable to keep our breakfasts down while Barney is on.
8-9 a.m. Park. Nephew has more fun picking leaves off the trees than he does using any of the playground equipment. So do we.
10-noon Zoo. Prompted by call from friend. "Hey, nephew, you want to go to the zoo?" "ZOO! ZOO!" "Sorry, John, he wants to go to church instead." Once at zoo, nephew insists on picking more leaves off the trees, giving animals cursory investigation.
12:15-2:00 Lunch and nap time. Nephew demands a bath instead of a nap. I hem and haw and fuss, but he insists he wants a bath instead. I put him to bed, close the door. The howls of indignation subside, after which point I sneak back in and take a closer look at him. Blech. Kid needs a bath. I furtively wipe him down with hand sanitizer.
2:15 p.m. Girlfriend goes home sick. Still can't get Barney out of her system.
2:45 p.m. Brother and sister-in-law return. I hurriedly turn off the Playboy channel upon their arrival. Profuse thanks. I tell about how a burglar broke in and stole all the liquor. Sister wants to know why I reek of hand sanitizer. I make an excuse and I leave.
3:00 p.m. Nephew wakes up from nap. I get a text from brother: "Why is my son yelling 'No AYP!'?"

Bullets in Madison Rocks at Reggie's

I'm chatting up a brunette waitress in a dive bar in downtown Chicago. Her eyes flicking behind me, constant sighs, repeated shifts from leg to leg and scowls of irritation all spell out entrancement to me. I am seductive. I am damn seductive. I'm so seductive, I could smooth-talk myself into bed. And I may have to, if this dippy broad doesn't get the hint in about ten seconds.

"I can totally get you backstage passes," I tell her, pausing to take a sip of my Cosmopolitan and adjust the collar of my Scooby Doo t-shirt. "I know the band."

"I work here," she says.

"Well, there's all kinds of backstage," I say after a moment's pause. Then I waggle my eyebrows. "If you know what I mean."

It's clear from her irritated look and imploring glances at the nearest bouncer, a guy with "Your Ad Here" tattooed on the back of his shaved, bull-like head, that she doesn't know what I mean, or else she'd be tearing my clothes off with her teeth right now. This irritates me no small deal. Women. Jesus. It's like they get more obtuse about blatant come-ons as they age. I shift my seat, take another swig of my drink, and try changing tacks.

"I mean a different kind of backstage pass," I say, tempted to draw it out on a cocktail napkin. "In my pants."

"Yeah, I got that."

"Anal," I say, pressing the point.

"I make it a point to never get involved with guys whose hair is thinning on top," she tells me, and my hand immediately flies to the crown of my head.

Damn her, I think as she walks away smirking, she's just toying with me. Or is she? I scamper over to a mirror on the wall, furtively examining my scalp and trying to decide whether the glaring white patch I'm seeing in the hairline has only just appeared, or whether it's been there for years and I just never noticed. My head is turning this way and that. My neck starts to hurt. My hands are shaking and there's the sour taste of approaching-middle-age desperation beginning to enter my mouth.

This can't do, I decide. I need to be up front and mature about this.

I immediately spin around and find the waitress again. I tap her on the shoulder. She turns. Recognizes me. Narrows her lips and waits.

"Bitch," I say calmly.

At that point, the bouncer approaches. I immediately tear off my Scooby Doo t-shirt and strike an instant flexdown. Pandemonium erupts.

--------------------------

If God really existed, I wouldn't have to keep following this goddamned band around the entire Chicago and suburban area into every two-bit dive and two-for-one-drink special club that agrees to hire these schmoes. But with the upcoming release of their new album, We Became Your Family When You Died, Bullets in Madison has been getting heavy airplay, and every screaming, frizzy-haired "Win a Dream Date with Brendan Losch"-hopeful teen (and not a few adults) has been demanding more and better media coverage. More, I can definitely supply.

So, after an early Father's Day evening out getting belittled by my immediate family in the Western suburbs, I climbed into my 1978 Pinto and prepared to make the forty-plus-mile journey to Reggie's, where they were scheduled to take stage at eleven p.m. My father looked dubious as I prepared to leave.

"You're not going to make it," he said. "It's late."

"Only for the old," I assured him while shrugging into my Wham! concert T-shirt and spraying my slowly-emerging mullet. "For the young and hip, the night is so not old. You just don't understand. You're not New Wave."

"Gregg, you're thirty-four."

"I'm thirty-three," I corrected him. "And I be chillin still."

"I still think you ought to at least have some coffee and take the train."

"That's what your mother said," I slurred wittily, backing out of his driveway and managing to carefully and expertly knock over his mailbox and garbage cans. My rapier wit had served me yet again, so I decided to reward it by parking the car at a nearby station, grabbing some coffee and taking the train downtown. Ha. Shows my father who's the boss of me.

During the ride, I snoozed and recharged for what I was sure would be a no-holds-barred one-in-a-million musical experience. At least, that's what it was the last time I saw them play. Bullets in Madison uses such a cacophony of musical appeals, they're difficult to categorize, but thanks to my expert training at the School of Writing Music, I can do so: They're Unique. However, I was worried that that might not be enough to satisfy my editor, which was why I was actually making the trip to the city to hear them. Otherwise, I would have just stolen the playlist, gotten a few sound bytes from the bar owner and made the whole thing up while drinking beer outside in my neighbor's kiddie pool. But music journalism is a harsh mistress and can sometimes be unreasonably demanding.

One hour and twenty minutes later, I staggered into the bar, Ready to Review. The first thing I noticed upon entrance was that every single dancer in a cage was not only thematically dressed (the Cheerleader, the Cowgirl, the French Maid), but could also pass for a pubescent.

My interest flared, then got confused.

Crap. I'd wandered into Roscoe's Titty Bar by mistake.

So it was another three hours (and several hundred dollars) before I made it to Reggie's, where, thankfully enough, the audience had spent so much time hectoring the previous bands and playing Beer Pong Twister, that BiM was only just setting up their equipment. Good. Problem solved. Starting over:

I walked into the bar, Ready to Review. I strode confidently over to the band, notebook in hand, fake smile plastered on my face, wiping the stripper's lipstick and boob powder off my cheeks, ready to do or die for indy Chicago rock journalism.

The keyboarder saw me coming. "Oh fuck me," he muttered, diving under the drum set and pretending to examine the floor beneath it. The rest of the band immediately looked as busy as possible doing the same.

"Come on out, you Gen-Next assholes," I raged, thumping the drums with the mike stand. "I know you're under there."

Evidently, the band conferred for a while, exchanging repartee like, "No, you go get rid of him," and eventually, one of the guitarists emerged. "Okay, make it quick," he said. "We've got to do a soundcheck. And order another round of Fuzzy Navels."

I snickered.

"What?" he demanded. "A lot of guys drink Fuzzy Navels now. They've come a long way."

I snickered again.

"Goddamn it, let's get this over with!"

"Well, I'm here doing another profile piece. I don't want to make the evening more stressful to you, but we just picked up another ten readers, mostly friends of my aunt, and they want to know about the new album."

The guitarist visibly gulped. A wiser head than I thought. My aunt's legions of fans can make or break a band in about five seconds. Look what they did to Menudo in 1985.

"Anyway, my editor wants two hundred words about either the show, the new album, or, if not that, transcriptions of the graffiti on the walls. So say something witty and engaging about it right now." With that, I whipped out a tape recorder and shoved it in his face. "Now, damn you."

He stammered and swallowed. "For the new album, we wanted to explore some new ground. We were looking to bridge the gap between the esoterics and objective message of our music, and found this was the best way to do it." He looked at me hopefully. "Okay?"

"Whatever. More." I pointed at my watch.

"Well, we found that the more we expected of ourselves, the more we managed to perform. It's like listening to the sounds of silence. It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Come on, feel the noise. I don't know, shit, just give it a good review, will you? I've got rent to pay." The guitarist tossed aside his copy of Rock Music Clichés to Give the Critics and looked at me imploringly.

"Can do." I winked at him. "Get up there and kick some ass."

And they did. Or so I would imagine. I couldn't say for sure since, for the entire duration of the show, I was getting pummeled by a bouncer named Moose over alleged improper advances made towards Tiffany, the waitress of the brunette locks and disparaging comments about putative receding hairlines. As I spat teeth and bled internally, however, I could hear a few new songs in BiM's lineup that hadn't previously made the playlist at any of their previous shows. The new songs, it would seem. And you know what? That nimrod with the guitar was right: they really do blend feeling and thought. They really do emote. It really is a long way to the top (if you want to rock and roll).

So in conclusion, fans would do well to run, not walk, to the nearest library, where you can grab...a book. You know, because people aren't reading enough and shit. Also, jump on to a computer before the library lady yells at you about registration, log on to bulletsinmadison.com, and put in an advance order of We Became Your Family When You Died, out sometime this summer. Because if the other songs are anything like the ones I heard this weekend, then the whole album is going to sound a lot like those songs. Until then, Dear Readers, I remain, as always, your rock music appreciation superior.

Next Week: Whatever Did Happen to Menudo? Aunt Sally Tells All.

What my girlfriend and I argue about

(with apologies to Philip Roth)

It was a warm summer afternoon in June and the clouds were low in the sky. They had been out on the balcony for maybe an hour, maybe ten. The movie was due to start at seven, and he kept checking his watch surreptitiously. After a while, she stretched luxuriously and grinned at him in unchecked satisfaction. Then, the words. A torrent of words between them, brimming over with emotion.

"You're so good to me."

"Yeah. Are you ready yet?"

"Gee, thanks."

"Sorry. But, seriously, we're late."

"Not that late. Anyway, we're having a moment here."

"We don't have time for a moment."

"Do we have time for a beer?"

"Okay, one beer."

The bottlecaps fell to the pavement with a ringing sound that can only evince lethargy and every Midwestern backyard barbecue in human history. They both emitted sounds of satisfaction, his more frenzied than hers as he contemplated watching Christian Bale fight a T-800 on the big screen.

Then, more words. Always the words. Always the emotion.

"I wish I had all summer to hang with you."

"That fight scene between them looked kickass."

"What?"

"I mean, yeah."

"Well I do. A summer together to just be together would be great."

"Well, we're leaving on vacation this week, right?"

"Yeah, but--"

"And we're hanging right now, right?"

"You know, I was trying to say something nice here. You don't need to be such a buzzkill."

"Who's a buzzkill? I'm giving you a buzz. I'm like a Buzz Lite Year. I'm reminding you about your vacation and what not."

"Okay, but still--"

"We're going to miss the previews."

"But still, when I say I'd like to have summers off--"

"Hey, I work during summers!"

She paused. Her eyes narrowed to slits. The beer in his stomach flopped over uneasily and he began examining his nails.

"Don't start with that. When I came home this afternoon, you were downloading fake GI Joe PSAs off Youtube."

"That? Oh. That was just a brief coffee break in an otherwise crowded and productive day."

"Yeah. You betcha. Now what I was trying to say was, I wish I had all summer to hang with you and not have to worry about going back to work."

"Well, I'm worrying about going back to work, and it's not even August yet."

"I'm trying to express my deep and sincere love for you, you jackass. Are you getting that?"

"I think in this movie, they get somebody who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger to play the first Terminator off the assembly line. Pretty cool, right?"

"I was trying to tell you I love you, but now you're just annoying me, so never mind."

The words broke through his preoccupation with buff robots and postapocalyptic storylines. He paused. He fumbled for the appropriate gesture.

"Oh. Well. Thanks."

"Yeah. Sure."

And with that, the moment crushed, stunned and reeling on the cutting room floor of the cinematic vista of a life in Anytown, USA, she left the patio. He sat, bemused, wondering whether he should follow, or take a separate car or what. He cast about in his mind to find the words to slap a Band-Aid on the situation. Always, it's the words. Like Hamlet said: "Words, words, words." If only he could come up with the right words this time.

He remembered that the movie started in ten minutes. He got up and made for the car.

And they made the movie with minutes to spare. They sat in the darkness. They held hands. They shared a soda. And as the screen lit up, he leaned over to tell her what he was sure, in her heart of hearts, she truly needed to hear:

"It really was a coffee break, dammit."

"Shut up."

"A real long one, sure, but still..."

"Just...shut up."

Fin

HAVING DRINKS WITH DEWEY--He leans over furtively. We're at a Friday's, and the TV is blaring an incessant mixture of ads, ersatz news and commentary. "I need to ask you something," he says hoarsely.

Can do. I can deliver. I can comment on politics (uninformedly) just as well as pop culture (as long as it's from ten years ago). Hit me.

"What's Tweeter."

Shit, I don't know. I make up some bogus definition involving Tweety Bird and Shakespearian conversion: a verb form of a bird getting chased by a big dumb cat. "Has something to do with us at the mercy of forces bigger than we are."

Dewey nods sagely. "That's what I thought."

Score.

Got a message from NINE yesterday: The Tribune's print edition will no longer be available for my classroom. They'll give me a free online E-version subscription. But no more dead tree version.

I give up. I've lost the battle.

For years, I've converted class after class to the joys of a print newspaper (in theory, anyway). I taught them how to Scan the Headlines Over Coffee. How to Fold it Irritably, how to Hide Behind It in a Crowd, and (my personal favorite) how to Read the Fucking Thing and Ignore the Dumb Ads.

I scored these frugal victories in the face of competition from reality television, Stephanie Meyer books and the drone and whine of our heady froth of pop culture. And now the Trib itself is saying, "Sorry, pal, but those sugar-addled, pizza-faced trolls aren't worth it." Nice. Validation goes miles in my world.

Time for a new lesson plan: How to be a Know-Nothing Pundit. I am now the Mr. Irwin of Media and Journalism Studies. The Machiavelli of Reporting 101. Ideals be damned. Work with the world as it is.

My first words to class tomorrow: "All right, who here can use the phrase "liberal cream puff" in a 200-word rant against Obama? The winner gets an internship."

Draft for an Advent Calendar for the Last Days of School

Yeah, it's only April. But we're getting there. And my patience is frayed beyond belief. So:

The Last Thirty Days of School (first eleven)

30. Insult a student in every class using Latin. Like, Scholas es stolidus.
29. Show a film clip completely unrelated to anything you’re doing. Preferably one with Traci Lords.
28. Put brandy in your coffee this morning. (More than usual, anyway)
27. Use the word merde casually. See how many kids pick up on it.
26. Take a prescription drug that’s not yours. (from your spouse, parent, brother, pregnant cousin, etc.)
25. Trade prescription medicine with a co-worker.
24. Rename your students using derogatory immediate surface details. "What did you get for number five, Push-up Bra?" "Nice to see you this morning, Smells Like Feet."
23. Don’t wear underwear today. Are you wearing it right now? Get it off. Don’t even bother leaving the room.
22. Imagine yourself as a nun in the sixteenth century for the day. Think corporal punishment, rote memorization, and a low-key subtext of homosexuality.
21. Walk into an administrator’s office. Pretend it’s yours. Use their desk. Make some calls. Tell them, “I might ask what the hell are you doing here?”
20. End every lesson with, “And that’s how you achieve orgasm. For tomorrow, casing the playgrounds.”

The Class is a film that actually shows what it's like to be a teacher...

...and I haven't cooked up a worthwhile review of it yet. Or anything meaningful to say. So check it out yourself, why don't you? It's playing in Chicago, and will be for a while, as far as I know.

In honor of National Poetry Month, a work from William Carlos Williams:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

If I'm teaching juniors next year, I'm so assigning essays on this bad boy. They'll hate me. They'll call me "Wheelbarrow." Yeah.

i couldn't wait
to grade

your wheel barrow
essays

but i still shredded
them up

along with the white
chickens.

Six ideas that might make me money

6. "Stone Walls do not a Prison Make...Mostly" A one-act play depicting the Duke of Norfolk's visit to Katherine of Aragon while imprisoned during Henry VIII's efforts to secure a divorce. She hated him. He hated her. But she's in a prison, and we all know what happens to lonely women imprisoned...

5. "E-date" A middle-aged married couple register independently on an online dating service to see if they'll get paired up. They experiment. Drift apart. And, because Hollywood wouldn't have it any other way, they reconcile in a happy ending after realizing the depths of their true feelings for each other. Blech. Watch for the Director's Cut: He takes to erotic body art, and she goes to Vassar.

4. The Dichotomy of Evil. An essay focused on Richard III's wooing of Lady Anne--"Take up the sword or take up me." Lonely geeks can use it as a template to score chicks who hate their guts.

3. In the spirit of The Tao of Pooh and the Teh of Piglet...Dumb Christian Values of Family Guy

2. "I will wax your snatch...for natch." Advertisement. Probably self-explanatory.

1. Blackmail Schemes for the Idiotic. Clever computer skills a must here. Victim must be semi-literate.

The D.C. Guys are in Spain. Well, it's a start.

As far as the beginning of a vacation, this is not-not-not bad.

The F-book post I've been dying for for nineteen years!

"Hi there! I still remember that day long ago when you called for a date and I acted like an idiot. Maybe I can make it up to you now? Be my friend? :)

Yes! Yesss! My moment has come!

"Hi. How you been?"

Ha! Revenge is sweet!

Wait...that's not cutting and cathartic at all...

Dammit!

Bullets in Madison come to Abbey Pub

by db, classical music critic

Watching Bullets in Madison soar through a half dozen or so of their hits on the crowded stage of the Abbey pub is a lot like watching a band that practices a lot get together on a Saturday night to entertain performers at a faux Irish bar.

Stop and absorb that analogy for a moment. Got it? Good.

The band, which fires no guns and, as near as I can tell, doesn't even know where Wisconsin is on a map, took stage at nine p.m. At that point, I'd consumed four or five beers, so admittedly, I was a bit hazy. Still, I'm sure they played some kind of music, which is what they were supposed to do. So, at least they deliver, right?

Me, I was testy because I'd recently dropped my cell phone in the toilet and wasn't prepared to purchase a new one any time soon. So all the texts I would have sent the band during the show couldn't go out. Not that they'd appreciate them. Every time I send a message to one of them, they're all like, "Hey man, I'm trying to play a song up here! Do you mind?" Fame. It corrupts many an aspiring artist, I tell you.

Also, I'd gotten a parking ticket. My car had gone three minutes over the meter, which wound up costing me fifty bucks. Fifty! Literally highway robbery. Except I was on a city street, so I guess it's...city street robbery. Clever.

So the ticket, plus a new cell phone, plus the five or six beers and the ten dollars to get in the door, had me expecting perhaps more than was fair of the six musicians with the eclectic vibe and esoteric mixture of melodies and musings on the potentialities of feeling in an increasingly mechanized world.

And yet, they still delivered. BiM soared through their set without one screwup, blown amplifier, mistimed stage dive, rodent-head-biting stunt or smoke machine malfunction. They sang. They played instruments. I'm relatively sure I heard a drum rhythm in the background, and at one point, the lead singer even looked towards the audience. If that isn't showmanship, then I ask, what is?

I got to speak with the band after the show. "Well, we really thought people enjoyed it," one of them said. "We're releasing a new album in the next few months or so, and we're excited that people want to hear from it."

"I just couldn't believe it was fifty bucks," I said, pretending to take notes on his drivel. "Who the hell does Mayor Daley think he is? More like...Mayor Pay-me. Ha! Hey, that's good!"

"Anyway, we're always looking for a new way to do our kind of music," he continued. "It's important to us to keep it fresh. Without that, the juice stops flowing."

"That sounds great," I said, clapping him on the shoulder and causing him to spill his beer. "Hey, you think you can introduce me to Chris Martin?"

"I don't know him."

"You don't? Wasn't that him on the keyboards?"

Since I couldn't get another interview after that, that concludes this review. I sincerely hope my editor delivers the moolah on time, as I've got this damn parking ticket to pay.

I just got off the phone with my editor, and she says no way on the money unless I come up with a killer ending to this review. So here goes:

"Bullets in Madison remains a band that continually hones its act. Through their words, through their melodies, through John Morton's gravitas and the band's overall appeal to our finer sensibilities, they ensure our constant attention, and remain a promising star in the cluttered cosmos that we call local Chicago rock. Sooner or later, this star will go supernova. Until then, this is your friendly classical music critic saying, I'm going to enjoy watching their star rise."

Next week's column: Robert Fucking Plant. And maybe the rest of Pink Floyd, if I'm lucky.


Before showtime, Bullets in Madison meets to figure out where the hell they put their instruments.

Hubris Lit Mag Introduction, 2008-2009

The real adviser is too drop-dead lazy to write a real one, so this one was ghost-written by yours truly. Enjoy.

Putting together a literary magazine is hard work. Not as hard, I'm sure, as cooking up fourteen couplets on watching your acne explode in the mirror ("Pus n' Boots" by Mike Tugner, freshman--page 45), or visually depicting the world through a lens of distorted images, poorly-chosen color patterns and scrawls of the word "fuck" across a slashed canvas ("Fuck," by Dave Erickson, junior--page 2). But it's pretty hard.

The process through which the Hubris emerges is rigorous and unyielding. A high school literary magazine is a harsh mistress, and I have to take its demands seriously. Before I do anything remotely constructive, I usually take last year's issue out of the files. I page through its contents, reliving its glories and triumphs. I stroke its cover. I inhale the crisp scent of cheap ink and pulp-saturated paper. I take it out with me, to restaurants, topless bars and NRA rallies. I really make an effort to get to know it. And then, after the concerned phone calls and interventions are all over with, I'm ready to Advise.

Advise Literarily, as the case may be.

It all starts for real early August, when, in the midst of my summer break, I begin interrupting my midday, beer- and nacho-induced naps and start to remember that I do indeed have a job that needs doing. By mid-August, I'm getting up at noon and idly thumbing through back copies of Swank and Adam's Quarterly: A Magazine for Gentlemen, in a desperate search for inspiration or, barring that, something to rip off. When school starts, I start plugging the magazine, especially to my freshman classes, young and impressionable as they are. I cook up a series of promotional posters, designed to spark interest and self-confidence.

From September to November, I watch the work roll in. Usually it's submitted anonymously, to my mailbox, with attached codicils bearing instructions for truly appreciating the sweat and blood poured into these pieces. Like, "Teacher: My painting was done after a two-week breakup with my boyfriend, and I would really appreciate it if you'd remember he’s an asshole, please." Or, "Dear adviser: I couldn't come up with a rhyme for 'festering sore' that accurately depicted my feelings about my study hall teacher. Can you suggest anything?" It's communiqués like these that reassure me about the direction the Arts are taking as we Twitter and Facebook our way into the 21st century.

After all of this, truthfully, I don't really do a whole lot. I choose fonts. I decide on the order of the pages. I spend a few days agonizing over where on the page the page numbers should go, and in what font I should supply them. I meet with Lake Park's legal team to make sure we're not vulnerable in the face of any lawsuits over questionable content and poor font choices. I text my colleagues for feedback, and sometimes, I even get it:

ME: I don't really understand the allusion to Ramses in this one poem.
COLLEAGUE: That's just Suzi's style. She's a deep young thinker who's feeling her way towards a higher artistic consciousness.
ME: What are you getting that from?
COLLEAGUE: Dead Poets' Society. It's on TNT right now.
ME: Wicked.

And sometime in May, the presses roll, and the class of 2009 has plenty of lining for their birdcages and litterboxes.

Oh, sometimes there's quite a few ripples upon publication. Debates over symbolism, Dadaism and postmodernism. Occasionally, harsh words, fistfights and the occasional gang rumble do take place. But that's the price you pay for speaking your mind, and I’ve tried to remember that throughout my tenure.

COLLEAGUE: Don't take it so hard. You're doing fine. You're a deep thinker who's...
ME: You were going to say something about an artistic consciousness, weren't you?
COLLEAGUE:...Gotta go.

That said, I can say without a doubt that this year's edition is the best collection of this school's writing and artwork produced and submitted between the months of August and December, 2008, and published the following spring, that you're likely to see in your lifetime. Hopefully, President Obama's stimulus package includes a few bucks for us, so we can finally start our Dead Writers' Centerfolds collection. (First up: Virginia Woolf! Aroooo!) But all of that is looking towards the future, and right now, I'm supposed to be ruminating about the past year.

So, without any further ruminations, here is this year's copy of our pathetic school's excuse for a literary magazine (font: American Typewriter), and you are more than welcome to the wretched thing. I'll see you all in August. Save me a copy of Swank, will you?

Mr. What's-his-Name
Adviser

"No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
--John Donne

"But John, seriously, have you seen what's off my island? It scares the crap out of me."
--Me

Try as I might, sometimes I have to visit the mainland. I've been sick as a dog the past two weeks: stomach problems, back problems, a cold, you name it. The only thing I haven't encountered yet this year is the plague, but I'm sure some kid in study hall who hasn't had his vaccinations will cough it all over me tomorrow morning or something. So after numerous weekends/weekday nights hacking on the couch and blearily watching reruns of Married With Children, enough was enough. Kim hooked us up with another couple for lunch and drinks. And we went.

I'm pretty awkward at going out with another couple. I do better with married couples. I don't know why. Maybe because, with a married couple, some interior labelmaker has pasted them "Stable and permanent" in my mind. Even if that's not the case and they're both sleeping with their secretaries or something, I'll still see a two-weeks-married man and woman as a UNIT, rather than a guy and girl in their mid-thirties who've been going out since Clinton was president. Which, I guess, would be us. And I'm safe enough, I guess. Neither of us even have secretaries.

So whereas with a married couple I ask idiotic questions like, "That linoleum on your kitchen floor is dee-lish. Where'd you get the contractor?" and "Gosh, your youngest is learning to read so well! I had no idea four-year-olds could tell Budweiser from Bud Lite!" in an effort to blend with the domestic crowd, yesterday, I had no such responsibilities. The couple we went out with bicker a lot. Like us. They are not above having lots of drinks. Like us (or at least me). And they didn't mind squabbling with us, either.

Truthfully, after about two hours, I'd had enough and was ready to return home. I mean, I was missing the episode where Al puts up a new antennae on the roof. But then, I kicked myself: For crying out loud, I have to live, right? Who knows when the next time I'll be encountering people will be?

So I shoved thoughts of my couch and basement aside and smiled as Brad, the Man in the Committed Relationship, explained why my belief in an active government ensuring the best for as many citizens as possible is "fuckin' retarded."

Ah. Sheer bliss, this social thing. Is this what others count on on a daily basis? If so, they're screwed.

Facebook posts I haven't had the guts to put up yet

Note--loyal reader(s), none of this applies to you. Anyone who has this address is NOT on my crap list right now, and is NOT referred to below. That said, if there's some overlap, forget it. And forgive. Please. I'm a malcontent.

For those unaware, Facebook has an application whereby you can post whatever you're up to at any given moment, for your "Friends" to see. Most posts range from the pedestrian and soporific ("Linda is doing laundry"; "Darren is taking the wife out to Starbucks") to the asinine and exhibitionistic ("Robbie is getting on a jet plane to head out to Ontario for lunch! Yum yum! Canadian sushi!"; "Ellen is http://incomprehensiblewebsitehere.com and loving it!").

I keep up because most of these people are either friends I rarely get to see and would not keep in contact with as much were it not for Facebook, or people I just like to spar with in writing. Aron, for example, wields his posts like a sharp scalpel.

However, for the record: My posts are poetry. Sheer poetry. I can play Facebook like Rod fucking McKuen:

Digger Blue is an integer greater than 2, so that the equation aMe + bMe=cMe has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c. (Feb 13. People loved it.)

Digger Blue just might have to choke a bitch. (Feb 12. People loved it.)

Digger Blue likes big books and he cannot lie/ You other brothers can't deny... (Feb 6. People sorta liked it.)

Digger Blue is writing a self help book titled "Your husband drinks because you're stupid." (Feb 5. Karen hated it. Score.)

Ironically enough, sometimes I'm maddened that my genius is wasted on people I know.

But every now and then, I censor myself. Such as: Digger Blue ...

--doesn't want to hear about how cute your choir boy kids are. Shut up. Put them in a real school.

--saw your gut hanging out in that vacation picture you put up. Nice spare tire, Jabba.

--sympathizes with how tough it is to go back to work doing nothing after a long weekend lying on the beach and flirting with desperate divorcees. How do you manage?

--sympathizes with the conference call you worked through. Must have been tough, texting me five fucking times while it was going on. When I'm working, I have to concentrate solely on work, or else I can't get the job done. How do you manage?

--didn't have an hour lunch today. Or a half hour lunch. But you did. You suck.

--thinks a body count is a body count. So enough with the Quassam Count. It's what, Israel: 13,000; Palestine, 20, right?

--didn't really like you that much in high school. So why is he paying attention to you now?

--'s notes are better than yours. Know why? Because he's not talking just to hear himself talk. Hello? Are you listening? Uh...scratch that.

--would rather be making love to what's-her-name than hear your gripes about the PTA.

--would rather be making love to himself than hear your gripes about anything at all.

--would rather be making love to OTAS. Period. That's it.

--would rather be making love to a weightlifter named Rocky in his eight-by-nine cell than spend another minute with these idiots.

--is amazed you can carry a grudge that long. And not a little proud, for that matter.

--thinks that just because someone hasn't fully matured, comes from a difficult home life, and hasn't yet come to grips with himself and his place in the world doesn't mean that person isn't still, and will forever remain, a douche.

--knows he could have done a better job today. But he still did more than you.

--just realized, if he were someone else, he would so do me.

I think my decision to remain circumspect speaks for itself. But wasn't it Neil Simon who said, "Once you censor yourself, you're a candidate for mediocrity?" Hmm. I seem to be on thin ice here.

I've been screwing around on Facebook so much with the notes function, I think I've brainwashed myself. Rather than plan out lengthy pieces, with varying degrees of success, I find myself firing off 500-word billet doux on any number of subjects: potty-training my dogs, childhood memories, etc. As a result, I've got a mental drawerful of pieces I need/want/sorta might like to write, but for motivational issues:

1) "Banned spellbooks": My librarian orders a copy of Lovecraft's Necronomicon, and gets brought before the board on charges.
2) "My own personal red list" or "They call me Madame Defarge": people I want to get revenge on when I hunt them down. First on the list, that guy in the Annex bar in 2001 who wouldn't shut up during the football game. Also, anyone who bought real estate from 2002 to 2006.
3) "Little Jimmy." Little Jimmy is a student in my Historiography class who, I just found out, has enough credits to graduate already, and thus has no real incentive to pay attention, shut up, open a book or otherwise be a human being when around me. I'd like to write him up as a case study on asshole-ness.
4) "Debates I'd like to have": Me vs. Bill O'Reilly, 2005--"So, where are those WMDs, numbnuts?" Me vs. Rush Limbaugh, 2008: "Oooh, I'm so scared of you...good thing I'm not a plate of cheeseburgers and pain medication right now, or I'd be toast." Me vs. Renee Descartes, 1637: "Listen, bub, if you only go by empirical evidence, how the hell can you ever hope to promote government or social reform? Go back to playing with your dolls or something."
5) "Children's books I'd like to write": My Daddy Drinks Because I Can't Do Long Division.Followed by my best seller Mommy's Been in the car for Twelve Days and Daddy's Taking Me to Disneyland!

I am damned erudite. I'm an erudite bastard. I'm like an erudite sandwich with a side of loquacity.

As far as new years go, this one is a bit of a puzzler.

I'm still reeling over our new president. Or is it that I'm overjoyed that the old one is back in Crawford, patting himself on the back? Or am I secretly pissed that I'm now robbed of the schadenfreude of watching him crash and burn under his failed policies, telling "I told you so" to idiots who argued that, yes, you can fight a war with no taxes, and, yes, we're so not in a recession, because this is America, dammit, and bad things are what happen to other countries?

Guess it doesn't matter. I'm high on Obamarama. On Hopamine, or whatever cynics are calling it. Three executive orders this week reversing Bush's doctrines, and my pretty little head is spinning like a Prom date's at a Motel 6 after hours. It'll wear off sooner or later. Problems will emerge. Mistakes will be made. But I can't see Obama hanging signs and smirking contemptuously in the face of world and, dare I say, national opinion to the contrary while the walls come crumbling down. Optimism has taken the reins for January, for the first time in years.

Still, there's always Blagojevich.

I may be a mediocre English teacher, but I'm still a patron of the arts. And when our governor quotes Tennyson's "Ulysses" (as he did last week in a press conference before Senate hearings began), I have to grit my teeth, because now, any students I have watching the news will confuse that towheaded, hubris-laden pontificator with an old man past his prime, seeking one more adventure. The poem ends with Ulysses imploring himself and his friends "to strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield" as they set sail from home. Blago, I don't doubt, sees himself in a similar vein, but there are obvious differences. He's not an "idle king" (the phone conversations taped and held by the prosecutor show he was anything but idle), and his people do in fact know him; his wife isn't "aged" (seems she had quite a few things to say herself), and as near as I can tell, he has no Telemachus to pass his kingdom off to. Maybe he should have taken up with the Strogers.

So as far as literary connections, "Ulysses" works about as well for him as Sonnets from the Portugese works for me. What Rod should have quoted, as more befitting his refusal to step down and save himself and the state the burden of impeaching him, would be my pal Macbeth. When the Scottish king realizes he's doomed, that the prophecies that supposedly made him immortal have actually led him to his impending demise, he manages to juggle both his own pride and self-hatred at the same time. Blagojevich could even have rewritten the lines to fit his situation admirably:

I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before old special prosecutor's feet,
And to be baited with John Kass' damned columns.
Though truth be come to Springfield,
And me opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Fitzgerald,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Executive Privilege!'

Now that's poetry, baby.

More culture coming my way. Masterpiece Theater does Dickens this spring. Excellent. I now have to get around to David Copperfield, and papers to grade be damned.

Just finished Tess of the d'Urbervilles. What a tramp.

"My dogs are Idiots" by Frustrated Pet Owner

I can't stand picking up after these damn mutts. Every day, it's outside, stand around freezing in the rain, or snow, or whatever, and all they have to do is do their business, and we can go back inside. Oh no, not them. Too easy for them. They'd rather stand there, whimpering, or shaking, or looking up at me with those puppydog eyes (guess that metaphor is rather obvious) until I take them back inside. And then, ten minutes later, we're outside again. What the shit? Do I have to draw you guys a diagram for how this works? Take Crap Outside = Go Back Inside. Got it? Don't make me make rugs out of the two of you. I paid hundreds of dollars to rescue you from that crazy old broad in Flint, Michigan, or wherever the hell she's from. I'll put you back there if you make me.

Okay, we'll go out again. But I swear to you, this is the last time.

"Our Mission is Almost Complete" by Two Stupid Dogs

It is our distinct pleasure to report back to Central Headquarters in Flint Michigan that our plan seems to be working flawlessly. Agent Robyn has perfected her "gotta-go-outdoors" approach to the point that our idiot owner is about to either shit or go blind. We anticipate a few more such excursions before he gets confused, drunk, or frustrated enough and locks himself outside the house, leaving us in.

At that point, we will establish this residence as Home Base and begin distributing our leaflets. Power to the People! Down with Capitalism! Workers of the World, Unite! My brothers, we are so close to victory. Rise up against those ridiculous TV-watching lardasses and let the Revolution commence!

Now you'll have to excuse us. We really do need to go outside and take a crap this time.

Or do we?

One more second...

According to the Times today, whoever is in control of the atomic clock is tacking on an extra second to 2009 to take up the slack of our time-measurement instruments, so that it can catch up to our solar rotation span. Or else it's the will of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, I forget which.

Sweet. I can totally use another second.

Lest it seem sort of pointless to make this particular vertical scratch on the wall, the article points out a few things that can be done in a second: "a cheetah can dash 34 yards, a telephone signal can travel 100,000 miles, a hummingbird can beat its wings 70 times, and eight million of your blood cells can die."

I can add to that list: In one second, I can bore a student to tears. I can find one fuckup of the Bush administration. I can remember that I forgot something. I can forget what I was doing. I can run 1/550th of a mile. I can make love to a beautiful woman. I can make a resolution. I can blow a resolution. I can absorb .35 ounces of carcinogens in a cigar. And I can cure world hunger.

Let's call this an upgrade: the year 2009.0001.

Enter: Two Stupid Dogs

It was a five-hour trip to Indianapolis, what with icy roads, idiot Chicago drivers and me stopping for five coffees to wake up. By the time I got there, I was dehydrated irritable, headachey and idly wondering how long it would take for me to reach Mexico and chuck the whole mess if I were to continue driving south.

Then, I swung into the prearranged Wendy's parking lot. Met a woman named Janet. And got my dogs.

Four hours back to home, and they were in like Flynn.

I used to hate dogs. Then I met my girlfriend's parents' dog. And their next one. And then my girlfriend got a couple of Chihuahuas that were the nicest couple of mutts you could ever meet. There are few enough creatures in this world who are so excited to see you when you come home, that they almost pee themselves.

Now, I've got two more of the little buggers. And while I'm on break, the time I usually spend reading, movie-hopping, binge drinking and vigorously massaging my scalp to prevent hair loss (futilely, I might add), is now spent going through the growing pains of being a dog owner.

It's pathetic. I'm saying and doing things the most schmaltzy, syrupy-sweet kindergarten teacher would throw up over.

For example: one of my dogs came with a Mickey Mouse harness. I took one look at it, rolled my eyes, and prepared to toss it in the trash. Then he growled. Apparently, he likes it. So I now walk my chihuahua in broad daylight in Disney regalia. I might as well be wearing a dress.

For another example, I'm trying to make damn sure they use pads when stuck indoors (it's been a typical ninth-circle-type winter so far here in the Midwest, with temperatures reaching twelve degrees below are-you-shitting-me?). Which means that, every time they use the pads correctly, I've got to carry on like they won the goddam Nobel Peace Prize or something. Sometimes, this interferes with my sleep. This morning, at 2 a.m., my dialogue with Dog #1 was like a James Joycean children's book:

"Good boy, buddy, now use the pad. Use the pad. Come on, ushe-da-pad! Who's a good boy? Huh? Who's a good boy? You are. You're the good boy. Yes you are, now use that pad. Good boy! You use that pad! You use it!"

I can sense my IQ, never all that high to begin with, plummeting as I strain to come up with euphemisms for "take a crap" so this damn dog will be able to dope out Doing My Business=Owner Very Pleased. It does seem to work, though. I may have a curriculum revision in mind next year:

"Who's going to do their paper? Oh whoshe-gonna-do-duh-paper? You are, Fernando. Yes, you."

Sad how a dog with a brain the size of a peanut can be taught better than Fernando, I think.

Hey Dad, if you're reading this...

Happy birthday. Post something to honor the occasion.


PHOTO: My old man, circa 1974, when he was an accountant for a major food services corporation. For some reason, they required their employees to pose for company calendars, although I'm sure it was totally legit.

There are fewer drugs more intoxicating than a snow day off from school. Normal snow days are one thing: if you get a Wednesday off, or something in the middle of the week, you usually wind up throwing at least a few hours of it away grading papers to get "caught up" for the weekend. I cry poormouth here, I admit, but it's still sort of a bummer to have to wait until nine a.m. to get plastered, instead of beginning the day's binging right at 5:15, when you get the call from your chair.

Today, though, is overpowering. I was supposed to give two finals today, grade them, enter final grades, post them, file my gradebook, print out a first-day-back lesson, and hit the pub with James Pepper, a co-worker. Now, though, I find myself with a day off before my two-week break, which means my lesson plans for first-day-back consist of giving the finals I was supposed to give today. Sweet.

So, to celebrate, I've drank two pots of Irish coffee, texted everyone I know who has to go to work today in order to sever any remaining friendships I might have ("I have a day off and you don't! Revenge is mine! Mwa-hah-hah!"), watched The Godfather, and am now contemplating some serious binge reading. No papers to grade. No assignments to plan. Just wallowing in my own crapulence.

This day is mine.



PHOTO: A snowy street in Chicago, filled with people who have to go to work, and therefore are having a suckier day than I am.

This is why they shouldn't start school earlier than 8 a.m.

Not enough coffee this morning. Groggy. Bleary-eyed. Slushy streets. Red light. Had to brake suddenly. Crash.

Car in shop. Driving a shitty rental.

Still not awake. Still not enough coffee.

I am now Trained in Sexual Harassment...

Wait...that didn't come out right. Please don't sue

Every damn year, we educators, we of the coffee breath and glazed up-since-5 a.m. eyes, have to go through online training in communicable diseases and sexual harassment.

The disease training, I really have no problem with. Every now and then, I come into the bathroom to view a kid holding a tissue to his spouting nose (the air is extremely dry in our building), at which point I'm not certain whether I should

a) get him another tissue
b) report the situation to the nurse, to prevent the spread of whatever diseases the little bastard might have
c) ask him if it's a coke problem, and if so, where can I score some

Thankfully, after viewing the Communicable Diseases and You! video, I now know: Drop all belongings and run like hell. But seriously, the Dos and Don'ts of dealing with potentially fatal situations are always helpful, especially when you spend most of your time isolated in the classroom. It's easy to forget this kind of stuff.

But the sexual harassment video...it takes the taco.

The program is on the Internet. A series of slides. Each has a lesson in sexual harassment, accompanied with cartoon people acting out the scenarios and panning words at the bottom, explaining what is and is not acceptable between coworkers. The lessons have audio, too. So that, if you're illiterate, you can't claim you didn't know. You click "Next" when you've absorbed the lesson, move on to the next, and at the end, you take a short quiz you can either pass or fail. And then you're certified.

That easy.

And yet...I struggle with the idea that, if you're seriously perverted enough to need lessons on "When is referring to your own penis socially acceptable," you'll be obedient and compliant enough to sit through a 40-minute visual aid showing how inappropriate touching can be a form of friction ("and we don't mean the good kind!") in the workplace.

No, I'm not kidding. Or exaggerating.

(Well, maybe a little. But damn sure not much.)

Here are some of the snippets I managed to copy down from my extensive forty-minute training, which, presumably, I needed, given the fact that they don't screen teachers enough to weed out oversexed dodos from working in a closed room with the taxpayers' children all day:

"Hector keeps asking Sally out for a date. But Hector needs to learn that Sally is an independent woman, who probably has a life of her own. Even if she doesn't, she still might not want to go out with Hector. Realize that Hector is Putting Himself in a Position." (I presume, not the good kind, right, Seminar Dialogue-Writers? Right? You're fucking-A.)

"If Linda asks her boss for a promotion in exchange for sex, is that sexual harassment?"

"Two co-workers regularly enjoy sharing ribald jokes. Neither is offended. And yet, if Tracy, in the next cubicle, overhears them, they've just crossed the line into Sexual Harassment...and they didn't even know it." (Bum-bum-bummmm!)

"You might be wondering if touching your own genitals is harassment. The answer is yes...if the other party doesn't want to see it." (Other party? Have people been spying on me in the men's room? Because seriously, sometimes a guy's got an itch, you know?)

Of course, being that we've had five months to complete the training, and being that I blew it off until today, the deadline approaching at 3 p.m. and my health supervisor glaring angrily at me from down the hall, I figured I'd doubleteam. Gave my seventh hour a video clip to watch. Then booted up the program. Not realizing that the audio they were using would soon be replaced with my training:

"How can you tell when you've been sexually mishandled by a co-worker?"

The words boomed across the room. Instant hysteria. Achin' pointing and laughing. A chorus of catcalls: "Oh Teacher, you been misbehavin'?" "Sir! Sir! I'm being mishandled right now! Come see!"

I guess I deserved it.

I'm working on my own sexual harassment comic book. When I'm on break, that's when I'll have time for the truly pointless.

Books I Plan to Write