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

Advanced Babysitting: A One-Act Play

Setting: My classroom. No windows. No light. No hope.

Characters:

Mr. Teacher: Carefree and blithe to enter danger; reserved and recalcitrant in the face of AYP

Cheryl Muffinhead: For the past five class periods, she’s been hunting in her bag for her cellphone, which she has forgotten that I confiscated some ten minutes before.

Stan Dupp: Aspiring Hollywood actor. Practicing his delivery skills from the second row.

Act 1, Scene 1.

House lights come on. an empty room, which gradually fills up with students. Mr. Teacher walks in last, carrying a billyclub and wearing mirrored sunglasses.

TEACHER: Good morning, my troubled little losers. You all failed yesterday’s exam.

CM: (interrupts her searching in her purse) I thought you said that test didn’t count! I thought you said you just wanted to see how we’d do! How we were progressing!

TEACHER: Yeah, well, tough. (twirling billyclub)

SD: Hey, look at the tough guy. “Eeeuw, look at me, I’m all tough.” “Eeeuw, look at me, I’ve got a billyclub--“

TEACHER: (brandishes billyclub threateningly)

SD: You can’t touch me, tough guy. I’ll have you busted.

TEACHER: (smacks self repeatedly with billyclub. Blood starts to flow. Chipped teeth fly in several directions.) Ow! Ow! Help he’s killing me!

Big men with walkie talkies burst into the room and haul Stan away. One big man with a walkie talkie sees Cheryl, decides her behavior is sufficiently suspicious, and takes her away too. Mr. Teacher picks up the phone.

TEACHER: Ok, I’m done here. Have the bus pick me up in ten minutes. We’re headed for the nudie bar.

House lights dim; half the audience files out in disgust.

The End

The Boss is In: Failure Fantasies

It's that time of year, with finals around the corner and adolescents' knees a-quakin'. And this is as close to the executive board room as I'll ever get.

Me: Johnson! Get up here!
Kid: Yes, teacher?
Me: You know why you don't fail this class?
Kid: Um...
Me: Me neither. You fail.

Me: Simmons! I got a riddle for you.
Kid: Yes, sir? I just love your class...
Me: Two people are in this room right now, and one of them didn't fail.
Kid: Well...that's not really a riddle...
Me: That's right! You fail.

Kid: Why do we have to read this dumb book?
Me: Because to not read it is to fail.
Kid: Okay, I'll read it.
Me: Too late. You fail.

Me: Simmons! I got another riddle for you!
Kid: You already failed me, sir. Remember?
Me: Okay, you don't fail. Now listen to this one: What's the difference between you and a kid who failed my class?
Kid: I give up.
Me: Nothing! You fail.

Me: Richardson! I want to talk to you.
Kid: You're an ass.
Me: (pause) Damn you. You win this round, Richardson.

Me: Get up here, kid. I want to fail you some more.
Aide: There's no one left. You failed them all.
Me: I did?
Aide: They're all in a study hall now.
Me: Okay, then you fail.
Aide: You're an ass.
Me: Woo. I want to go home. Somebody fire me.

Reasons Tso is an Idiot

File #1718

CARY--Twenty text-messages to that bastard. "Hey, Styx is in town!" "Come on, man, I only put it in a little!" "Oh come on, quit playing like you don't know the score."

Then I realize he's on a cruise with his loser family and loser friends. More importantly, he didn't invite me. Or send me a postcard. Or call the doctor about those tests we said we wouldn't tell anyone about.

He knows what I'm talking about.

So does Dewey, who only corralled me here tonight to transfer his wife's shitty music into a new laptop computer. The drink he gave me tastes suspiciously like chloroform, and there's a lot of rope and lubricant under the couch as I type this. I fear for my life. I fear I won't want to leave tomorrow morning.

VIA E-MAIL--It's a damn good thing I didn't enter Congressional fantasy elections this year. I would have gotten killed.

I would have bet on Obama, but...Ohio? Indiana?

Fucking Florida?

And the Dems picked up those seats in the Senate?

I'm giddy.

Another campaign video. Somebody stop me.

Sandberg for President

An incompetent man for a meaningless position

Below is a campaign video and some posters for Mr. Sandberg. Remember the power of your vote on Nov. 4. Remember that you can make a difference.

Then remember that you can vote for him instead.

(Man, I love this Mac!)

Dear Senator Obama:

Today, I voted. I'm not saying I voted for you, and I'm not saying I voted for Senator McCain. And I'm definitely not saying I didn't get confused while voting and accidentally figure the booth to be a urine sample collection booth or anything. So for now, let's keep this all in the hypothetical.

Hypothetically, if I did vote for you, it was historic. The first ballot cast for an African-American candidate. I should frame the "I Voted!" sticker I got, except I've already got another "historic" one. The sticker from 2006. When the Democrats took over in 2006.

Okay, maybe that's not a fair comparison. I mean, the Dems have been in charge before, haven't they? Sure they have. And even if they hadn't, your meteoric rise to power is nothing short of staggering, regardless of how one views your political credentials.

But two years after the Democrats swept Congress, look at the state of affairs we're in. The economy. The continuing war in Iraq that nobody seems to want to call a war. Job losses. Property foreclosures. And so on.

I'm not blaming the Democrats, you understand. A lot of damage was done over a long period of time. I just haven't had the kind of leadership I'd thought I'd voted for, and that makes the whole situation dangerous. Because Americans are idiots, and if immediate gratification isn't delivered from the party that just took power half an hour ago, they'll start clamoring for "change from change" and go back to the party that wielded the whip and chair over the previous decade-and-change.

So my prediction is, whatever you do in your administration, you're going to catch a ridiculous amount of flack over it. Which is fine, as long as you stick to your vision. Which is also fine, as long as you have a vision.

You do have one, don't you?

Just checking. I thought you did.

It could be a total disaster with you in the White House. If I voted for you, I might have had this cross my mind. Economists quoted in the elite liberal media to which I subscribe avidly point out that Americans will save more money under your tax plan than McCain's, but they're scratching their heads over how you're going to pay for some of your proposed budgets. You're right in pointing out Bush's shortcomings, and McCain's similarities to him sometimes scare the hell out of me, but seriously, what is your better plan for Iraq? And how do you plan to hold the mortgage companies' feet to the fire to ensure a stable housing economy, so I can get my property the fuck off my hands?

(The Economist advises axing the home ownership tax exemption, by the way. Would save us billions. Maybe look into that? But let me sell mine first, okay? Thanks, big guy. Wink.)

Still, if I were to throw my chips behind you, I'd realize that a black man in the Oval Office is going to generate a lot of waves. Not all of them will be good. Many will be pointless and stupid (does Obama wear a pin? does Michelle Obama love her country? next week, do your children really love you or are they just mouthing platitudes? film at eleven). But I'm hoping that, if you take the reins of power, your vision will soon emerge and evolve into leadership. And Senator, I am so ready to be led.

Sincerely yours,

Another damned blogger

And on the horizon, a beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born: A novelist

Oh crap. It's almost November.

Oh crap. That means NaNoWriMo.

Oh crap. That means I'm going to be dumb enough to enter the contest for a third year in a row.

I. Am. An. Idiot.

It all started with Tso. All stupid things do. He told me, "So quit grousing about your job and go back to grad school. What's the worst that could happen? You flunk out? Which you probably will."

So I did. And I met Wiggo. Who, four years afterwards, while we were both struggling secondary educators, told me about NaNoWriMo: a novel-writing contest where quality is eschewed in favor of quantity, and a loyal legion of "writers" churn out crap copy and clutter the blogosphere and wannabe-publishing industry with their deadline-enforced literary efforts.

"I can't get into that!" I whined at the time. "I've got papers to grade! Plus, I'm starting a unit tomorrow, and I really should take a look at the book. Who is this Joyce guy anyway?"

"If you're that behind, then this won't matter," he said breezily. "In fact, it'll help. Joyce wrote in stream-of-consciousness. You can write that too. You'll have an inside look at the writer's mind. You'll be a star, a stellar nova, a Cultured and Distinguished Man of Letters. The students will revere you. You'll widen their horizons."

"Yeah," I said distantly, trying to watch House of Payne out of the corner of my eye.

"And you can get a t-shirt. Cheap."

I was immediately in.

This was \ two years ago. I took last year off. I had to. It was that traumatic.

So now I've got to start all over again.

Damn you, Tso. You suck.

In all honesty, writing a novel without clear direction seems to me as dangerous as driving a car with your eyes closed. Last time, I got far enough into my piece to realize that November ending was the best thing in the world for me. Without a forced conclusion to the charade of my "creativity," I'd never be able to end the damned thing. Mine involved a couple of brothers: one an alcoholic high school teacher (they say write what you know), and one a defrocked priest, both home over an extended weekend to deal with a family situation. I never figured out what that situation was. I never figured out why the priest was defrocked. I did manage to recount, in excrutiating detail, what the teacher liked to drink (Jim Beam on the rocks), and what the priest was wearing (jeans and a t-shirt), and what they both did the first few hours of Friday afternoon (teacher drank at a bar and ignored cell phone calls from a putative girlfriend; the priest went to the father's house and learned that he'd bought a new car).

Ulysses, it ain't.

And yet, to be candid, I had fun messing around with it. It became a kind of halfassed game: How far can I sink into this putrid collection of free-association and agonizingly-direct characterization, before I either get so sick of the whole thing as to vomit, or run out of time, or both? Not very far, as it turned out. But once you make the decision to write it and enjoy writing it, as opposed to writing to win a Pulitzer some day, the whole experience becomes, if not rewarding, certainly more comforting. Like riding on a second-rate roller coaster. Cheap thrills, no discernible payback, but you can wear a t-shirt bragging about your endeavor and people will at least raise an eyebrow in approval.

Screw it. I'm in. Hear that, Wiggo? Get your pencils sharpened, bitch. We goin' to have a cage match.

Signs I might not be cut out to be a poet after all

Camping in October. It's been a while. I had to dig in the basement for my wool hunting hat.

In the past decade or so since I cut loose and slept in the great outdoors during that time of year when "yellow leaves do hang upon the bough," I've managed to destroy my back in a combination of sedentary suburban life, frenzied midlife crisis activity, and dominatrix hobbies...I've said too much. What is safe to say is, a bad back plays hell with the wonders of Mother Nature.

The pain and I are old friends by now; sometimes, he's good enough to tell me how long he'll be around, while other times I have to guess. Sometimes the pain can be dealt with by imbibing a pint of stout and a large piece of red meat (the kind of food that's going to land me in trouble further on in life, at least, according to my doctor, the quack), but the last time I tried self-medication like that, I wound up bloated, drunk, and still in pain. I might have still tried it, you know, for recreation, but the park prohibits alcohol. Along with bestiality and voting Republican.

Other times, the pain has miraculously disappeared by submersion in water: a swimming pool, a hot tub, the beach. This occurred to me, but when I cast a look at the lovely waters of the state park, my optimism withered on the vine.



(And what's this I hear about drinking the water brain causing to my damage? Bunch of ass garbage face ask you me.)

So, for all I could tell, I was stuck with a back that wouldn't let me recline comfortably, sleep, kayak, or otherwise relax. All I could do was walk.

Walking provided my muscles the stretching I needed, and furthermore, kept me doing something besides sitting and thinking, "Jesus fuck, my back hurts." So as I walked, constantly grumbling to myself about the book I could be reading could I concentrate, or the papers I'd tried to grade on the way but gotten sick over, whether because I was reading them in the car or because they're so bad my eyeballs wanted to hemorrhage, I couldn't tell, I started to remember some lines from Whitman.

Yes, I recall Whitman in the midst of nature. Does that surprise anyone? It should. I'm a relatively late bloomer to poetry. I always knew what I hated in poetry: anything I couldn't teach. Which was mostly everything. My first year teaching, I got stuck with a lesson on "Song of Myself," and it took everything I had in me to not take the New New Criticism route on that puppy: "Whitman is singing about himself. He likes himself. Remember that for the test." Later on, I heard of Whitman's penchant for young men, long rambles, free verse, and belief that Shakespeare wasn't the author of Shakespeare's plays. But for years, in some mental file labeled "Whitman, Walt," all I could come up with for the longest time was "He liked nature." Shameful.

I started reading Whitman more heavily a few years ago, and I've dove into him this month for reasons I'm not ready to divulge yet. But the more you read Whitman, the more you get to dig his way of looking at the world. Precisely because it seeks to empower your own:

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

There's a quote I'm not ready to share with my classes, for obvious reasons. But how about this:

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems;
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun—(there are millions of suns left;)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books;
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me:
You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself.

All of this is old hat to today's liberal arts public school educators: The student needs worlds to discover, don't step on their inner children (whatever that is), so on. But in his time period, it was revolutionary. And really, look at those lines! Roll them on your tongue. There are millions of suns left? And we can possess its goodness? On our own? Really? I have that kind of perspective in me? Golly!

So with those lines in my recent memory, little wonder they came to me this weekend. I only wished I'd had a copy with me: Whitman once remarked in a letter that "it makes such a difference where you read." He even almost got shitcanned from a printer's job because he took two- and three-hour lunches, loafing around with a book or chatting up dockworkers in Lower Manhattan or Brooklyn. My man. If only he'd been a drinker too, we could have been soul brothers.

Well, actually, as it happens, not quite. Because all in the space of fifteen minutes or so, I tried, and failed, to Become a Poet.

It wasn't as crazy as it sounds, to be honest. The Poet, by my way of thinking, doesn't wear dark clothes, smoke dope, feign an exhausted kind of boredom and world-weariness that may or may not be unique. The Poet, quite simply, sees. Writing it down is only a third of the job.

And I dig the idea of Seeing. It's such a plastic, tenuous thing. I "see" that my back is bad, and that I probably need medical investigation and rigorous physical therapy, but my actions belie my sight, as they do for most people, I suspect. (Not Kim, of course, who was off being an Explorer while I was a Poet--ask her about her neck therapy and you'll see what I mean.) I "See" the nuances of my life--we all do, it's not Divine Recognition or anything--but managing to capture it, via metaphor, symbolism, or otherwise engaging trope--is a skill I suspect everyone should have. We should all be poets. And then not tell anyone.

Others do it better than I. Honestly. I have my favorite poets. My casual acquaintance poets. My Poets I wish I knew better. My old favorite Internet poets and Internet poets worthy of new study. My friends who are poets but don't realize their own depth. And my friends who write poetry because they figure it's easier to insult me with haikus than their own halting vocabularies.

So here I was, a thirty-three year old male trudging a state park, surrounded by nature (and families, I might add, at least thirty percent of which were pretty trashy), finding myself untethered. The normal stresses of the week were gone. Thoughts of bills, lesson plans, obligations and trash to take out had flown the coop. All that was left was the singular voice in my head, and I decided this would be as good a time as any to put it to work. I would capture some of my surroundings, or what the surroundings gave birth to in my own consciousness. I would be a Speaker for the Ages. A Man with a Voice.

Here's what I came up with:

A back
that aches like my own sensibilities
like learning for the first time you're going to die some day

------

Why is it that those dysfunctional families are always the loudest?
Is it true that the squeaky wheel gets the grease
or is it simply that
some wheels don't roll properly?

Now, this isn't one of those "look how crappy of a sensitive side I have? hyuk hyuk" posts. I seriously tried to write some verse. Or at least, I tried to try. I don't know. Maybe my head wasn't in it. One thing I can promise, though--any verse I upchuck, unless it passes some sort of litmus test I can only imagine exists somewhere, will not rear its ugly head here. I've got enough sins on my head concerning wastes of cyberspace.

But it was sort of fun screwing around with it like that. I think I'd rather write iambic pentameter, unrhymed, exploring the haunting emptiness of a consumer-driven lifestyle. Clear, crisp verbiage; readily-accessibly analogies; allusions that will force even the most stultified, reality-TV-addicted casual peruser to sit up and go, "Whut? Whut's he talkin' bout? Gots to look that up. Where's mah Wikipedia?"

So, Becoming a Poet just made the List of Hobbies. Right between "Learn French" and "Re-learn the French you were supposed to have learned in college." I offer this not in the hopes of creating an audience, but simply because, like most things dealing with words, the announcement itself has power.

For someone who prides himself on being a student (and occasional teacher and borer-of-students) of rhetoric, I've paid scant attention to the debates. In fact, the only one I watched start to finish was the vice presidential one, and I gotta tell you, What's the friggin' point? If all they're going to do is tout their running mates, that's not a debate. That's a couple of kids nosing up each other on the playground, arguing, "My dad could kick the crap out of your dad!" Entertaining, yes. Statesmanship? Give me a break.

In fact, I'm more soured about this election than I was the last one. I'm a pessimist. I'm not proud of it, but it's how I came out. My first birthday that I can remember, I thought to myself, How many more of these do I have to look forward to? Seventy if I'm lucky. At my senior prom, I was the one shoving Enya and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to the d.j. And just the other week, I told a class of giggling girls to study their Nietzsche, to realize why they shouldn't be so giggly. For me, the glass isn't even half empty; it's also breakable, with water that will soon evaporate and is all-too-briefly enjoyed. So when Bush said, "Bring it on, Kerry," I thought, Well shit. The Lone Wolf is saddling up. Who can withstand that kind of persuasion?

But at least the last election afforded me the luxury of hatred. I hated Bush then. I hate him even more now. And now that he's on his way out of the office, I feel much like the CIA must have after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I've lost my scapegoat. My focus of contempt for the Republican Party. The anathema to conservatism touting conservatism. The boogeyman. And who do we have to replace him?

A smoov-talker and a war hero.

That's really all it's going to boil down to once the "filter" is cut through. McCain is selling a tax plan that every economist I've seen interviewed acknowledges is sticking it to the very middle class he purports to support. And Obama, as near as I can tell, wants to open the windows of luxury limousines and throw cash by the handful out the door to the starving masses. Pardon me while I vomit ebullience.

The debates (the scant portions I've seen) have told me nothing. When the moderators reprimand both candidates for dodging the question, you have to wonder how they'll stack up against Congress, or their national addresses to the nation.

The SCLM has told me little except that both candidates are prone to misrepresentations, and that they don't like each other. Also that Sarah Palin is entertaining, but possibly vapid. Hats off, folks.

And the polls? Don't get me started. If you polled every American on the face of the earth about the economy and the staggering and frightening dips the market is taking, make one of the questions, "How stupid are you with the economy" and watch the numbers rise. Vox populi my ass.

So my plan is simple: I'm going to find a hole, crawl into it, and come out in twenty years. By then, if history is any guide, we'll be through this recession-in-name-only, and well on our way to another major war, at which point we can focus on a new bad guy, let corruption run rampant and turn a blind eye to the financial sleight-of-hand that gave us prosperity in the short run yet stuck us in this cesspool of a situation at the moment.

And maybe by then, my pal Bush will be doing the lecture circuit or running for Congress. Now there's a fight I can win.

Reasons I can't tear my eyes away from pole dancing

Our culture is rapidly becoming destroyed by instant viewing video clips readily available. I'm good evidence of that. Sunday morning, I got a blast of the Sarah Palin impression on SNL. Two days later, some idiot put three bootleg clips of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight for me to gawk at. As I pore over video clips, my bedtime gets later and later, the sun passes me by like a thief in the night, and the pride I feel about not watching any (repeat: any) TV in the last few months is erased by my eternal, burning shame at staring at footage of adolescents skateboarding and cracking their nuts on outdoor stair railings in the process.

So when I was on JibJab the other day, the Pole Dancing demonstration caught my eye. It was bound to happen.

I don't get pole dancing. I understand, intellectually, what's appealing about it, but as a male steeped in a tradition of woman-ogling, it does absolutely nothing for me. All I can think of when watching it is, "Hey, she must be in shape. I wonder if I could find out where she does her yoga." Or, "If she can pole dance like that, I bet she could jump rooftops like Spider-Man. Man, what I wouldn't give to be able to web swing like Spider-Man."

So why (and I speak in all candor, friends and neighbors) can't I immediately drag my eyes away? It's like watching a spider spin a web.

Put a guy on the pole, I wonder if it would be the same reaction. I suspect it would. Maybe. Crap.

I need to get out more.

Vignette # 1216: Florida trip

It's 1998. I'm a first-year teacher on holiday break, traveling to Florida to visit, among other things/people, my aunt and uncle. We've been driving steadily for fourteen hours; Tso has adamantly refused to let me behind the wheel, so I've been whiling the time away grading papers, reading a novel, chainsmoking Marlboros and arguing heatedly about the quality of the upcoming Star Wars prequel. Tso, meanwhile, finds his serenity chainsmoking my Marlboros and dismissing the paperwork I'm currently grading as "not worth a tin shit."

We're both exhausted, but there's no other way to do these goddam trips besides driving straight on through till the morning. The poets call it an experience that will expand your perspective. I call it an experience that makes your ass feel like a piece of granite. This, in fact, will be my last trip to Florida for years, possibly ever. Driving south through the Midwest in winter sucks. Getting into the south, however, is encouraging: the air grows warmer, you start to see palm trees, and suddenly you remember that you're about to see sandy beaches and drink My Tais in outdoor bars while getting chatted up by other tourist pleasure-seekers. Not a bad way to spend your spare time. Oh, there are better ways, to be sure, but we take our comfort where we can find it.

A little after eight in the morning, we pulled into my aunt and uncle's. I haven't seen either of them since they moved down here a year or two ago, and the house immediately impresses me. A mile away from the beach, scrubland surrounding it. Fritz, an expert landscape gardener, has been at work here, and it shows. Later in the day, they will walk us through the surrounding area, showing us where they walk, where they socialize. Another year in the future, Fritz will install an outdoor shower that my grandmother will use, describing the experience as "unique."

"I'm beat," I complain to Tso as he hauls our bags out of the bed of his truck. "How are we going to handle this?"

He shrugs. "They're your family. You tell me."

"Let's just tell them we need to sleep for a while, and that there's a dinner in it for them. I don't think they'll be too bad with that."

"Let's hope so."

We walk up to the front door, and knock. A moment later, my aunt answers us. Visibly pleased. Hugging me. Shaking Tso's hand. She's steady. She's articulate. She looks like she could go teach class herself. Behind her, my uncle walks over. His smile is amiable; his grip is firm. He looks like a man enjoying his retirement immensely.

We spend some time talking about the drive down, but all of us realize this is only banter. The words, "I need to crash for a while; do you mind?" are on my lips when my uncle slaps his hands together.

"What can I get you to drink? We've got several kinds of liquor. Perk you right up."

Tso and I exchanged glances. Well, I think, we are on vacation...

Many drinks later, we're carrying on like it's New Year's Eve. Which it almost is, anyway, and besides, the hell with it, it's a New Year somewhere in the universe, right? No one is outrageously drunk; there's a palpable feel-good atmosphere in the air, and I desperately wish to take some of it and bottle it for the long, cold drive home and the long, cold months of winter ahead. But all of that is in the future, and for now, the present is something I'm wallowing in.

That was the last time I saw my uncle, who passed away yesterday. I wish I could see him one more time. Many more times. I wish I'd made the damn trip down south like I'd always intended to. I wish I wish I wish. Lesson in there, I suppose. Learned too late for my uncle, but at least it was learned.

So here it is, friends and neighbors, a Friday morning, the sun shining, birds singing, the rumble of the expressway providing a soothing cathartic to the daily grind of suburban life, the recent skunk expulsions down the street wafting gently through the air, and me, with a head that feels like it's stuffed with cotton, a rumbling chest demanding instant expectorations, and a voice that sounds like every baliff in Night Court combined into one.

That's right. I got me the illness.

I was out two days already this week, and hoo-boy, I feel like it's been a month. Spent most of the first day reading a book (not too taxing); the second day, I leafed through another book, wondering morbidly how things were going back at school while I was gone. I didn't have to wait long, as it turns out; I went back the following day, believing it would be less work in the long run to be my own sub (an erroneous assumption, as it turns out--how do you tell a kid to "Stop fighting!" and sound credible when you have to wheeze it out in between nose-blowing into a hanky?). For every day you're out in this biz, there's another pile of crap to read, grade, weep over, yell at them about not doing correctly, or cast into the fire. Normally this process is lubricated with beer, but beer and a chest infection seems to me like throwing water on a grease fire. So all I could do was seethe inwardly. Probably the very character trait that's destroying my immune system in the first place.

Then, this morning. Croak. Croak. No voice. Head spinning. Air painful against my skin. Chest burning. Eyes watering. And it took me at least two minutes to figure out what time it was, as I gazed stupidly at the clock on the bedside table. Ugh. This did not bode well.

So, instead of traveling to scenic Spring Grove, Wisconsin to partake of some quality outdoor theatre, I'll most likely be in bed, drinking hot mixtures laced with ginger and God knows what, trying to recuperate enough health so I can spend my Sunday trying (futilely) to catch up on all the grading I otherwise would have gotten done this week.

Forgive the whininess of this post. It's just that a steady diet of cold medicine and broth tends to produce exposition of the immediate, rather than the abstract, the intellectual, or the somewhat-remotely-interesting.

OK, how's this instead? Comic book art software makes for an interesting hobby!




What happens next? Tune in when...I come up with something.

Sad day indeed, when the best political commentary comes from...

...Cracked.com.

I’ve already heard that Obama and Palin are both fairly inexperienced. And I’ve heard that McCain doesn’t know how to use the internet. I’ve heard all the “pig in lipstick” and “I can see Russia from here” lines, because they’ve been repeatedly jammed down my throat over and over and over again. How could I miss them?

I don’t need to hear again about who was a Community Organizer, and who thinks that “Community Organizer” is a laughable position. I’m not concerned with how many houses someone has. I don’t need to be told that someone is a terrific speaker. I don’t care how anyone feels about hockey, and I don’t need to hear about what Priests a candidate may or may not have hung around at some point for some amount of time.

And if I hear “Hey, the bottom line is, she sold the plane” one more fucking time, I’m going to track down that plane, buy the shit out of it, and crash it directly into the White House, regardless of who’s living there. Test me on this.

I feel like all we’re getting are lies and lines, and no one’s talking about the issues and no one’s holding anyone accountable. Media, you’re supposed to be on our side. Stop repeating the same sound bites over and over again. In the history of forever, has a President’s ability to do his job been enhanced or impaired as a result of how they feel about moose-hunting? Then shut up about it.

I mean, is Adam McKay right? Is the media completely dead? Subquestion, why the shit am I getting the most honest and insightful political information from Adam McKay?

Oh yeah. I'm feeling the logic.

Conservapedia.com, the conservative's answer to what, I suppose, is a left-leaning Wikipedia.

Some routine searches:

William Shakespeare's life and works in about two pages' worth of text, with a whopping four sources cited (three of them web pages). Conservative academia?

Eric Alterman does not exist. Guess I saw that coming.

Barack Obama was "allegedly" born in Honolulu. Presumably, this means he might have been born in Kabul.

The war in Iraq had nothing to do with WMDs. (The only even tangential reference to that whole debacle: The site credits a Washington Post article pointing to a meeting between Bush and a Spanish prime minister who said Hussein was "open to exile" and such an exile might avoid war, but that "Bush made it clear in the meeting that he expected to "be in Baghdad at the end of March" (according to the former p.m.).

Helen Thomas is a "liberal anti-war biased journalist." And she wrote...what, exactly? Pamphlets? Protest songs? Or do we take you on conservaword alone?

In short, a conservative encyclopedia is a valuable reference tool...as long as you ignore some facts, truncate others, and shorten your entries to those meeting the attention span of a six-year-old. Color me unimpressed.

That damned left-wing media...

Pop quiz, sea monkeys! Who said the following quotes about the media?

1. "Don't believe the right-wing ideologues when they tell you the left still controls the media agenda. It does not any longer. It's a fact."

a) liberal comedian/pundit Al Franken
b) liberal fillamker Michael Moore
c) liberal Fox News commentator Alan Colmes
d) Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly

2. [The] idea the media now tilt toward liberals is absurd."

a) CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer
b) MSNBC's Keith Olberman
c) Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas
d) conservative analyst Bruce Bartlett

3. "[There's] this cottage industry [in the media] in which it pays to be unobjective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it, too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket."

a) political commentator Jay Marvin
b) White House reporter Helen Thomas
c) Hardball's Chris Matthews
d) Weekly Standard's Matt Labash

4. "We have the media now."

a) New York Times' publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
b) Washington Post former editor Ben Bradlee
c) a secret cabal of pro-Israel newspaper owners
d) conservative pundit Ann Coulter

If you guessed "d" to all of the above, you win the grand prize: sight over ignorance! Truth over slander! And a date with me, at the NRA rally of your choice!

WORKS CITED

O'Reilly's comments: The No-Spin Zone, July 2005 (transcript currently unavailable on Fox's website)
Bartlett's comments: Realclearpolitics.com
Labash's comments: Interview on journalismjobs.com
Coulter's comment: Interview with Sean Hannity July, 2005 (soundbyte courtesy of Oliver Willis)

Research compiled by Eric Alterman. Sapere aude, indeed.

Lessons of the Masters by George Steiner

or

Mumblings of a Wannabe Pedant who Just Read Lessons of the Masters by George Steiner

I glommed onto this particular tome in a reference Alan Bennet made in an interview several years ago. A depressing amount of Steiner's arguments sailed harmlessly over my head; he uses allusions and casual references to Ovid, Schopenhauer, Nietzche et al with an ease I can only envy (at least, at this point).

Still, his monologue on the Teacher/Student relationship is worthy of consideration, especially in today's politically-charged pedagogical climate. In no particular order, going over this book in the only fashion I feel I could pull off worth a damn, I give you:

Ten Things I learned from this book

1. The transmission of knowledge is inherently erotic. I'm not sure how. Steiner argues that the student's intellectual submission before the Master is charged with eros, and to overlook this potential disaster/boon (witness Socrates and Alciabades, Abelard and Heloise, Plato and any boy with pecs...) is naive and limiting. I don't think current laws allow me to explore this matter any further. And Steiner, you'd better stay the hell away from my third hour.

2. A teacher can measure his success by his disciples' ultimate rejection of his tenets. "To teach greatly is to awaken doubts in the pupil, to train for dissent. It is to school the disciple for departure...A valid Master should, at the close, be alone." I buy that.

3. The study of the humanities is at odds with that of science and math. It's ridiculous to argue that we'd be bereft of radiation without Madame Curie, but we would not have the Sistine Chapel without Michaelangelo. I'd have to respectfully disagree here. Read Tom Stoppard: "What we lose to history will be picked up along the way...or rewritten in a completely different language. You should no more grieve the loss (of the books of Alexandria) than you should a shoelace lost on the sidewalk." (Paraphrased)

4. High school teachers suck. We have a "subconsciously vengeful mediocrity" and are "more or less amiable gravediggers" a la Yorrick. Hey, Steiner, no offense, but fuck off, all right? If you had any material on presentation besides lectures and q&a, I might be impressed.

5. We can thank Goethe for the eternal credo: "He who cannot, teaches." I'd cuss him out too, were he not already 176 years dead.

6. The charged relationship between Master and Disciple is dangerous (it can result in castration, like with Abelard and Heloise), a case of one-upmanship (Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler; Max Brod and Franz Kafka); it can seduce and destroy you (Mephistopholes and Faustus); it can kill you (Socrates); you can be good at it and still reviled (the strange, sad case of Georges Palante); yet all of these dizzying possibilities underscore the raw power, responsibility and rush (my new three R's of education) of the one profession without which there would be no other professions.

7. It is extremely difficult to figure a rate of exchange for sharing one's passions with students. At least, in the academic world.

8. Some teachers have had stringent requirements for their students, sometimes to their detriment (Pythagoras), sometimes beneficially so (Zen masters).

9. The fact that I need to reread this book (a third time, I might add) to even come close to absorbing it satisfactorally, is a testament to both my failures as a teacher, and my doggedness, which is one of my greatest assets as a teacher.

10. I have so got to read the following stories: "The Lesson of the Master," Henry James; "Of This Time, Of That Place" (author?); "The Lesson and the Secret" (author?); The Dying Animal, Philip Roth.

ALE HOUSE--Blogging from Dale's iphone. Beer and hypertext go suicidally well together. Kai is in town-rejoice! Tso is hiding at his parents'--loser.

((Insert appropriate noun here))head that I am...

It was supposed to be a walk in the park for a Monday morning lesson.

Famous last words.

I gave them Old English riddles out of the Exeter Book. It's the ultimate sleight-of-hand; getting through British literature and history is an uphill slog for a lot of these guys. Oh, I put on my dog and pony show to be sure, finding connections with their own mundane lives and the like, but in the beginning, it's all guts, glory and gold (Beowulf, Deor and other titles that, in my infinite stubbornness, I do not take off the syllabus). Today, it was just a riddle. A stinking riddle. That's it.

I saw a tree towering in the forest,
Bright with branches, a blooming wood,
Basking in joy. It was nurtured by water,
Nursed by soil, till strong in years,
Its fate snapped, turned savage--
It suffered slash, rip, wound
Was stripped in misery, chained dumb,
Its body bound, its head wrapped
In iron trim. Now it muscles a road
With head-might for another grim warrior--
Together they plunder the hoard in a storm
Of battle. The first warrior swings
Through dense threat, head-strong,
While the second follows, fierce and swift.

In case you're a complete, you know, idiot, the answer is a "battering ram."

"A what?" rumbled a history buff in the front row.

I made idiotic pantomimes with my arms. "A battering ram. For god's sake, you know, one of those large rams made from a tree you used to bust through a castle door!" Turning impatiently, I went to the board to do another one of my Award Winning Illustrations:

"See? They tied the ram to a fulcrum, and then swung it against the door."

"Yeah, but the riddle says its head was wrapped in iron. What the hell kind of tree is that?"

"No, see, Johnny, you've got it wrong. Because you're, you know, an idiot. They used metal to gild the head, so the ram would have more weight."



Johnny starts to get it. So do the wits in the back row. Everyone is getting it except for your Friendly Neighborhood English teacher, who decides they're just too groggy from the weekend to grok the idea of ironwork in the fifth century. So he adds the coup de grace:



That little mark on the tip was as far as I got. Then I stopped. Realized what I had drawn. Didn't realize earlier because I'm, you know, an idiot.

Cursed, erased hurriedly.

Too late. Bedlam.

Later, a colleague stopped me in the hall. "They really sounded involved last hour," she said, in a tone one part sarcastic, two parts disbelief. "How did you get them so engaged?"

Look at me, honey. What do you think?

"Oh. Another mistaken phallic entendre?"

Damn right.

The First Days of School

First full week and change

IN THE NINTH CIRCLE--I don't know. I just don't know. The mornings are getting tougher. The hours seem to have more minutes in them, and I'm encountering people in the halls who know me, but whom I don't know. Not just new teachers, either. Old students. Parents. Current students whom I mark absent, and then forget entirely that they exist later on. I stared blankly at a stack of papers for ten minutes today while eating my lunch, and then realized I hadn't touched them. I asked around and found that a lot of people were going through similar growing pains. But they're able to shrug them off, roll up their sleeves, and get back to work. Like Hamlet, I brood over them, and double their impact.

Last year's kids are swarming over me in the halls. "Oh teacher teacher, we miss you!" "Oh sir, our new English teacher is so mean!" "Oh man, could we please do some Confirmation Essays! Just one? I'm hurtin' for a fixin'!" At this, I can't help but jeer. "You were the biggest whiners in the world last year, and now you want to go back? Oh yes, I read your Facebook page! I saw the photoshop job you did on my butt. And now your dues have come! Moo ha ha ha!" At this point, they file out, sullen, abashed.

And then the new students file in. Sullen. Unabashed.

"I heard we're having a quiz today," one of them intoned irritably.

"You heard it from me,"I said. "It's on your schedule. And I wrote a reminder on the board. And I said the words as I wrote them."

"So it's true?" Sigh. "That sucks."

Two hours later, I'm in a Current Events class. The headline from Ted Koeppel's old show, circa 1979, reads, "Iranian Hostage Crisis: Day 101."

Hand raised. "I don't get it."

So I went into an old song and dance about the Iranian hostage crisis and how it hurt Carter's presidency but how Reagan capitalized on it in the first days of his presidency.

"But I don't get it."

"Well, Iran is a nation of meanies. Right now, we're trying to keep them from building a bomb."

"No, I don't get it!"

Well, what's not to get?

"What's a hostage?"

And other such events unfold. It could be worse. It has been worse, in fact. But it could be better, too. I could be just as clueless as some of them, for example. "This note says I'm an ass-face. Well, thanks! Thanks very much! I do have a sweet butt, now that you mention it."

See? Orwell was close: Knowledge is pain. Ignorance is relief.

The First Days of School

First Day

S'BERG--Still on this weird cold remedy buzz. A wall has been established between me and the outside world, particularly the world of the high school. Behind this wall, I am strangely omnipotent. Like Brahman, I have established an all-knowing wisdom, while, retaining enough of myself, sneering at the goings-on in front of me. Were I without this wall, the things I hear in the hallways (on. the. first. day!) would send me howling at the moon:

"Man, my ass is toasted!"
"Dude, do you have Mr. (my name here)? Let's rush him."
"Tonight, I told him I wanted the whole fist."
"Who does he think he is, telling us not to sniff the glue? It's art class. I can express myself however I want!"
"Dude, did you see Mr. (my name here)'s car? Let's tip it."
"Man, your ass is toasted!"
"Who does he think he is, telling us transcendentalism was an offshoot of Romanticism? It's all about the sublime, rather than a historical period! Asshole."
"Pi squared, bullshit. Didn't Einstein prove Euclidian geometry is fallible? Give me another hit of that, will you?"
"It stopped bleeding. Now it just itches all the time."
"Dude, do you have Mr. (my name here)? Man, he is toasted!"

I feel strong. I feel pedagogical. I feel like taking a nap.

The First Days of School

  Orientation  

Ten kids to orient. Nine showed up. I croaked my way through a rambling explanation of why journalism is important, why we should pay attention, why it'll help them in the long run, even if they don't want to be journalists. The entire time, Achin', who has a room across the hall, is flashing pictures of the Materials Director's face superimposed on pictures of Olympic wrestlers caught in unfortunate starting positions. The DayQuill isn't kicking in. Maybe because I forgot to take it. I think I need to go home.