How to (not) watch a silent picture.

I hate (not really, I don't) to harp on a constant theme, but people are really dumb.

I am whiling away a hot summer night in Richmond by watching a great German picture from 1919, "Sumurun."  I'm certain that no one ever considered it high art, but it's a pretty good movie, and features some of my favorite elements: exotic locale, fun costumes, and Pola Negri. Damn, that chick was HOT, and she plays an itinerant dancing girl which means she wears not very much and...oh, yeah, back to the blog.

This isn't a discussion of a particular movie because really, you should just watch it yourself; it's on YouTube.

Last week I was reading a blog about horror movies, which I'll not name because I don't want to offend anyone.  The blogger usually has pretty good reviews of horror pictures but one entry on "The Bat" really yanked my chain.

He went on for some time about how he "couldn't watch silent movies" because he's not good at reading lips and the title cards didn't tell him what people were really saying.  Dude: you're dumb.

"Sumurun" is a German movie.  I can speak German (haltingly), can understand German (if the speaker isn't from some weird rural place whose dialect I don't understand well) and can certainly read the German title cards.  What I cannot do is read lips when they're speaking German.  And yet--o miracle of miracles! I can understand exactly what's happening in the movie.  Because, you see, that's what movies ARE--watching action.  If you need to rely solely on voices, perhaps you should investigate radio drama.  I'd not be surprised to learn that the same blogger couldn't understand radio drama, because he couldn't see what was happening.  I'm reminded of my student many years ago who told me "You kain unnastan what be goin on cause it in black and white." Um. OK.

I find it hard to believe that we're so used to talking pictures now that the silent screen makes no sense.  Why? Before the dawn of the galloping tintypes, the most common form of public entertainment was the stage, which--you guessed it--has both visual and aural stimuli.  Somehow, people were able to comprehend the movies, even though they didn't talk.  No one read lips on the screen, unless they were deaf and were used to doing so in everyday life.  (Famously, Clara Bow was forever in trouble with deaf audiences who could tell every time she said "Fuck," which was pretty often. She was from Brooklyn after all.)

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am indeed both classist and elitist, both socially and academically, but this is not an example of my snootiness.  Motion pictures, especially in their early years, were very much intended for the masses.  I'd be surprised of Kronprinzessin Cecilie ever saw "Sumurun."  It was intended to be seen by factory workers, farmers, the milkman and the office worker.  If any of the aristocracy or cultural elite saw the thing it was happenstance.  A movie made in 1919 purely for that audience wouldn't have done too well at the box office.

So, here's my lesson for How To Watch A Silent Movie:
a)Don't try to think you're watching some Great Art. It's just a damn movie.
b)Don't try to read lips.  Even if they're speaking your native language, you'll get distracted and you might see somebody say "fuck."
c)Just watch what's going on. You'll figure it out.
d)Listen to the music. It's there for a reason--it sets the mood.
e)Read the goddamn title cards. They're there for a reason, too--to advance the action and to help people who are a little simple and aren't quite following the action. Or, those who can't read lips, apparently.
f)Have fun! Some of the most wonderful stories on film are silent.
g)If you can, find a real movie palace. There are a few left that occasionally screen a silent. It's easier to get sucked into the movie's world if you see it in its natural habitat.

Let's Eat Grandma (or why punctuation is important and you shouldn't move cross-country)

This year we had a poster in the English hallway that hyped the importance of punctuation. It said simply "Why punctuation is important: knowing the difference between 'Let's eat, Grandma' and 'Let's eat Grandma." It might be an extreme example, but honestly it's the kind of mistake I see pretty regularly. Kids love to say "You know what I mean," and if I saw this my answer would be, "Yes, I do. You intend to chop your grandmother up and make her into stew, which is not only diabolical, but impractical, because I've met the lady and she's pretty skinny."

On the heels (preferably uneaten heels) of removing this poster at the end of the school year, I scored a nice big pile of books from the school library's purge.  The librarian was distraught; she didn't want to get rid of books but had to make room.  One teacher's tragedy is another's windfall and I wound up with some really cool stuff.  

Not the least of these was a historical novel about the Donner Party.  Since tales of the gruesome fascinate me to no end, I scarfed that one up like a cannibal at a retreat for overweight missionaries. 

Snow Mountain Passage turned out to be a passable, if not wonderful, read.  I'm not sure that I really want to recommend it; the most compelling aspect was the subject matter.  An inherent issue with historical fiction is that, if based on actual events, you pretty much know how everything turns out and that was the case here: settlers make long series of incredibly bad decisions, encounter insane difficulties that they really should have known about, get stuck in twelve feet of snow and end up eating dead folks.  It takes a pretty skilled author to put a new spin on this sort of thing and I felt, here, that author James Houston relied upon the fascinating grue of the facts without adding much to it. 

In the modern era of four-hour flights across the United States I understand that I'm a bit of an anomaly; I just don't really feel the need to leave Richmond that often.  By "that often" what I actually mean is "ever;" travel is fun and God knows I love my trains, but it just seems a lot of effort when I am perfectly happy to stay right here on my porch with gin-and-tonics and a stack of good books. Therefore, I am at a loss to understand the motivation of people in the 1840s to make that trek to California.  (Please note that I did not use the expression "arduous trek," two words that seem to be inevitably paired.  I'm assuming you already know that the trek would have been arduous without having to resort to an irritating cliche.)

It is particularly noteworthy, I think, that the vast majority of people who did make that trek in the mid-nineteenth century were not poverty-stricken.  They couldn't have been, really: the cost of equipping yourself and your family for what was, at least, a four-month journey through completely unsettled territory was exorbitant.  The sale of your land would probably cover it, but you'd need to have a pretty heavy asset base to even think of the undertaking.  

And I simply can't imagine why anyone would want to do it.  The prospect of leaving a comfortable home in the East where you have things like, you know, other people and cities and department stores, just to piss off on a four-to-six month trip without roads, through deserts and over mountains, only to live--not visit, live--in a place you've never seen and really know nothing about does not strike me as a particularly brilliant venture. 

It says something about either the uncrushable spirit, or perhaps the sheer insanity, of the people who did make the move that their accounts after settling indicate that they found the ordeal to have been completely worth it.  I don't buy it, but that's probably because I'd get there after all that desert and mountain crap, discover that there wasn't one decent bar in the whole place, and become rapidly suicidal.  

Adventure is all very well and good but I'll take mine onscreen at the Byrd Theatre.

Спасибо, Россия!

Even though I'm terrible at actually using Google Analytics to do anything productive--which is sad because it seems like it should be pretty easy--it's lots of fun to look at statistics.  Remember a while back I discovered a couple of readers in Poland? Imagine my surprise when I checked my stats today and I've had eight views from Russia.  I do know a couple of Russian people, but they live in Baltimore.  Maybe someone went home on vacation?

Also the stats page shows you which browsers were used to access your blog.  Usually it's all Explorer and Chrome but today there were several unfamiliar ones, including one called Opera.  Therefore I'm assuming this is one of the Russian folks.

Naturally this gives me the impression of a bunch of people sitting in a box at the Mariinsky Theatre during intermission, reading the trials and tribulations of a slightly-deranged Richmonder.  (If this is the case I've always wanted to see the Mariinsky. Please take a webcam shot and post.)

Let's watch Gibbs try to post from a phone...

...because it's the modrun thing to do, donchaknow. Really, I have students who attempt to write papers, as in research papers, on their damn phones. Remember these are kids who try to type on an actual keyboard using their thumbs. Seriously, people. Take a couple of weeks and learn to touch type. Until I went into the classroom, the most valuable class I ever took was Mrs. Gibson's typing class at Walkersville High.

Anyway, I felt the need to try this because I want to see how hard it is (result:annoying as hell) and also because I just read a hilarious essay online about why the author will never take her kids to Planet Disney.

I couldn't agree more. While I loved the full length Disney pics as a kid, the newer ones leave me cold as a welldigger's ass. The characters are hatefully smart-assy, and they've abandoned tried and true fairy tales for a bunch of utter crap. I mean really--what were Pocahontas and Mulan but a couple of half-assed attempts at political correctness that still ended up being stereotypical?

I also resent Disney's role in destroying the real amusement park. Amusement parks were once these happy little places that existed in almost every city of more than twenty thousand. You took a streetcar to them, spent the day on rickety rides that cost a nickel, drank beer and ate hot dogs and went home.

Disney got everyone convinced that an amusement park should be a Destination and an Experience. Instead of a streetcar ride in your own town, cheap thrill rides and a bologna burger (that's a Richmond thing) you fly across half the bloody planet, stay in a $300/night hotel, buy $75/day tickets to the park, and eat $15 burgers. Also all those sweaty college students dressed as Donald and Mickey give me a raging case of heebie jeebies, which probably only complements the raging case of heat rash those poor dudes have inside those costumes.

I wonder how many people actually make a return trip to Disney World. After one round of a flight and a hotel stay with children I'd be done--never mind even one day of the broiling-hot Florida sun in a theme park with hour-long lines for rides.

The more indulgent parents of  my generation are welcome to it. When the drowsy summer days roll in, I'd much rather go to Baltimore's long-gone Bay Shore Park--or sit on my Richmond porch with a gin and tonic like a civilised adult.

Apparently I have little to do in the morning except read billboards, but cut me some slack, folks--I-95 is just not the most exciting drive in the world.  Except of course when a car nearly flips off the bridge into the James which seriously almost happened a couple of days ago, but that is not the kind of excitement I need at 6:15 in the morning.  To be quite honest, I need no excitement whatsoever at 6:15 in the morning because what I need at that ungodly time is to be still in bed.  Hell, I've never even understood the supposed delights of morning sex; I'd much rather have another hour of sleep.  Getting laid is all well and good but I've heard that you can never really recover a sleep deficit and it sounds like a legitimate argument to me.

Yesterday morning I was cruising down 95 trying not to stare at the gas burnoff at the city wastewater treatment plant, which fascinates me for some unexplained reason.  I observed that there is another billboard with a hotline for Jesus.  This one was specifically about Jesus, not God. Being officially Cathopalian, I understand that they're the same deal. Hey, Christianity rocks; we have a deity with multiple personality disorder! I was imagining the differences if you call the Jesus line instead of the God line:

"Yo brah. This is Jesus, what's shakin?"
"Hey, Jesus."
"You are SOOOOOO glad  you called me instead of my Dad. He is such a douchebag. He like for realz doesn't GET it, amirite?" 
"Sure, Jesus. Whatevs.  But yeah, like he serial wouldn't even turn the Mayo Bridge into a jujube for me last week, you know?"

While I was pondering this and probably pretty much ensuring a lightning bolt in my near future, I saw a billboard for Cracker Barrel that derailed my extremely heretical thought train.  It says "Home Made Doesn't Cost Extra."  I wonder if anybody at Cracker Barrel's marketing department has actually considered the meaning of this billboard. Just like the folks at Toyota and their "Everyday" campaign, I don't think anyone really gets what this implies.

Obviously, Cracker Barrel is trying to tell you two things: a)their food is home-made, though whose home is not quite clear--and b)that their food is reasonably priced. Unfortunately, the message that I get is "It's cheaper to eat at home, so don't bother going to a restaurant."

Which brings me to my actual point for the day: good food is not actually expensive.  I know that I've spouted, in the past, my disgust with those who say "Eating healthy is expensive."  Two more points, y'all: a)That is a grammatical nightmare and b)NO IT ISN'T.  The kind of people who make this claim are most often 325-pound people who find it acceptable to wear grungy pink terrycloth bedroom slippers in public anyway, but their insistence that decent food is expensive probably also explains why they weigh that much and wear gross slippers all over the place.

The assumption goes hand in hand with a culture that simply can't process the concept of preparing its own food.  "Eating healthy" at restaurants--real restaurants, that is--is usually a bit cheaper because well, chicken and salads are cheaper than lobster and drawn butter.  But of course these are people that don't eat at real restaurants.  Let's face it, M'Kayla from South Richmond ain't exactly rollin' into the Hotel Jefferson for a luncheon with the Junior League.  When she does actually get off her ass to make food, it's probably going to be along the lines of opening a bag of Fritos, dumping canned chili and a bag of pre-shredded cheese on top, and microwaving it until it looks like Hopewell.  (Sorry, Hopewell, but you DO have a reputation.)

With this in mind, I conducted a small experiment.  I think this will be an ongoing series of experiments just for the sake of debunking the expensive-good-food myth.  I had to go to the Kroger anyway because I was out of mixers so I figured I might as well go ahead and get food for the next day as well.  I picked up a chicken breast, a bottle of wine, and some Brussels sprouts. I already had some Jello at home, so I saved on dessert. Including the bottle of Coca-Cola I'd gone to pick up in the first place, my entire check came to less than eight dollars (it was a really cheap bottle of wine).  The last time I actually bought anything from KFC, it came to about the same total.  Had I bought sufficient amounts at Kroger to feed three or four, it probably would have come to about twelve dollars; the same at KFC would be closer to twenty--and a lot worse for me.

I'll continue the experimentation, but I don't want to have to actually eat the fast food to do the comparison--anyone willing to take one for the team?

Next Week on This Screen! -- sequels and sadness

I hate sequels.  They have the feeling of a serial that didn't know when to quit.

I think a problem inherent in the sequel as a literary form is that, all too often, it seems to be an afterthought, and I have the distinct feeling that the last two I've read are exactly that.

The concept of the sequel is not to be confused with the extremely popular--and extremely profitable--"trilogy" genre, which seems to have taken over the world of young adult literature in recent years.  Those things aren't really sequels--the authors know well in advance that they have a longer story to tell, but divide it into partres tres for the easier digestion of their younger readers.  I suspect too that having a story in three parts is in no small part a marketing angle as well; you get to sell three books instead of one longer one, and you also get to make three different movies out of them.

The sequel was always a bad idea with movies--other than maybe, and I stress maybe, Star Wars--has there ever been a sequel (much less a continuing saga) that was worth a damn? It's not a new development; the earliest one I can remember is "Son of the Sheik," a 1926 follow up to the smash hit "The Sheik."  Valentino looked pretty great in all that fake Arabian stuff, but the original wasn't that great and the sequel was abysmal (though the presence of Vilma Banky sure helped).

I've harbored this opinion for years and so I don't know why I had to pick up the sequels to The Shining and The Talisman this year.  Really I do know why; when I'm not wearing my official English Teacher Hat (which actually takes the form of a tweed jacket with elbow patches) I love reading horror stories.  I particularly loved The Talisman when first I read it thirty some years ago.  I had already developed a fascination with the idea of alternate worlds or alternate realities, and Talisman is a definitive in the genre.  Besides its protagonist was more or less my age, so his journey through worlds really hit home.

Black House, its recently published sequel, could only disappoint.  Except that it really didn't, or it wouldn't have as a stand-alone novel.  I so badly wanted a couple of evenings' escape to the fascinating world of the first novel  that, when the sequel promptly didn't really have much to do with it, it was primed for failure in my eyes.  The young protagonist of the first book is all grown up now; what was once an otherworldly quest has pretty much turned into a detective novel, albeit a really long one that involves some supernatural crap thrown in.  Oh, it works, and it's a pretty good read--but just as Taco Bell is delicious as long as you don't try to think of it as being Mexican food, Black House is a great novel as long as you don't try to think of it as the continuation of The Talisman.

What does a ghetto classroom sound like?

This, pretty much. 

If you ever end up teaching a, let's just say disadvantaged, population, be prepared for the fact that these kids (who claim they can't afford pens and paper) will ALWAYS, and I mean every damn period of every damn day, have a plastic bag (usually from Aldi) full of sodas and small bags of Cheetos (TM) or corn chips.  It takes about twenty minutes to consume one of the snack bags because the chips are eaten very daintily, one at a time.  So there's the constant rustle, because twenty different people start eating at different times.

Just don't allow food in the classroom, you say?  You've never heard these kids whine.  It's like asking them to gouge their mothers' eyes out.  I'd spend more time telling them to put the fucking chips away than I'd ever spend teaching, sort of like the cell phone thing.  So I just put up with it.

Sadly, the chips are an example of two things.  First, as what's obviously a primary food source, they explain why these kids are invariably overweight and in poor health.  Second, they explain why the kids are stuck in an economic rut. Snack food is more expensive than real food.  Buying six small bags is more expensive than buying one big one.  Since they obviously had to go to a store in the first place, they could have gotten a pre-made sandwich for less money, which would be healthier.

Also it wouldn't make that infernal rustling. 

What to do when your internet doesn't work...or justification for Luddism.

I have to admit that I actually really love technology.  Never mind that I barely believe in science. (Oh, don’t get all weird on me; it’s not like I’m one of those people who believes the earth was literally created in seven days and is only 48 years old or something.  I just don’t really understand most science so I don’t pay much attention to it.)  I mean, I’m pretty antediluvian in my application of technology.  People who are up to date, as a rule, at least have an electric record player.  (I exaggerate—I do have one but I’m not terribly good at operating it.)

If it weren’t for technology I wouldn’t even have my trusty Grafonola, because while significantly out of date it does represent a technological advance.  Ditto electricity, which I mistrust but of which I am quite fond.  Candles are great at dinner parties but otherwise are kind of a pain in the ass (see post—“I live with retarded cats”)especially when Wally manages to catch his tail on fire. And indoor plumbing? Thanks, but I’m not about to give that up.  The past loses its romance in great part when you consider Elizabethan London, where the contents of chamber pots were usually tossed out the window and into the street.

The major downside to technology is that we are utterly lost without it.  The school lost its internet connection this morning (I’m typing this up in Word, intending to post it later).  This completely poleaxes my lesson for the day.  Fortunately my kids are perfectly happy to just sit here and read, because there’s nothing else to do.  See, we are the pilot program for school-issued Chromebooks ™ in Chesterfield.  Therefore, most kids don’t have paper, because they don’t usually need it.  I can’t see my lesson plans because they’re all online. I would resort to older, still-functioning technology and pop a movie on, but…I don’t have any DVDs or even VHS tapes in the classroom because since the ‘net is the savior of the world I usually just show stuff that’s online, when I need to use a movie.      

      

Most of my kids can’t really remember the Y2K panic, but I do, and I found it hilarious at the time.  People really expected airplanes to drop out of the sky. I’m sure that even hypermodern airliners have manual overrides.  I even heard someone claim that elevators would stop working and people would be trapped in office buildings all over the world.  (To be fair I suppose that would be a result of power outages, but the person seemed particularly concerned about elevators, as if the elevators themselves would be distracted by the event.)  What I never did figure out was why it was such a big deal if all the computers thought it was 1900.  I could see that it might be problematic for record keeping, but why would it make computers just up and die?  Would the computers possibly realize that if it was indeed 1900 they wouldn’t have been invented yet, and shut down in order to preserve the time-space continuum?  It didn’t happen anyway so speculation in hindsight is a little pointless. 

On the other hand I am sitting here with a bunch of kids who have effectively forgotten how to complete assignments on paper (we did discover some paper).  Also: none of them know how to write in cursive.  It’s “old fashioned” so schools don’t teach it anymore.  And a bonus for today, mesdames and messieurs—today’s Thing My Students Don’t Know: “What’s a boxcar?”

FML

If you could merge a print of "The Scream" with a still of the Death Star exploding, that's pretty much what I probably looked like at about 7:30 this morning.  Everyone has "one of those days" occasionally but the Universe must have been saving up in its stock of "pissy, annoying little things" for a few weeks just to dump them today.  Here's a chronological review of the day, and keep in mind that it's only now 9:03.

• Hit snooze alarm once too many times.  Proceed to wake up at 6:10 instead of 5:45, therefore lose much-needed breakfast/coffee time.
• Drop bar of soap on foot in shower. Ow.
• Slosh cats' drinking water on floor. Spill some into cat food dish. [Proves to actually be good thing as cats are inexplicably excited about this.  Mental note: still does not merit buying wet food which stinks.]
• Get halfway down stairs; realize classroom key is still in apartment. 
• Start car; cannot find lighter.
• Stop on Meadow street for gas/coffee. Pull up at the one gas pump that is out of order.
• Move to functioning gas pump.  Go inside to obtain coffee.
• Realize at this point that do not have change for Downtown Expressway.  Figure this is OK and will get cash back from coffee purchase.
• This gas station does not have a cash-back option when paying with debit.
• Need to use gas station ATM which rapes you for two bucks because do not have time to go to real ATM.
• Get on downtown expressway.  Somehow the $20 bill has escaped into thin air.  Have to get IOU from very pleasant toll booth attendant.
• Still can't find goddamn lighter. 
• Lighter is in crotch.  Discover this when shifting around and lighter pokes sensitive dude-parts.
• Make it to school just in time for first bell.
• Receive email from colleague saying there's a $20 bill next to my car. 
• Have complete meltdown. Implode. Compose blog entry from a different dimension.

Welcome to my world.

Mini-post because once again the marking period is over and grades are due and mine are totally not ready and therefore I am losing my  mind BUT because I love my tiny little reader base very much, I thought I'd let you have a little glimpse through a porthole into my world.

People who don't work in education, or teach in schools that serve a more well-to-do population, really don't understand how completely out of touch our kids are.  Actually, I'm willing to bet that even kids at well-heeled suburban schools are pretty out of it, reality-wise.

When I say that my kids don't know shit from shinola, I'm not referring to their academic knowledge.  My students in Baltimore really, really didn't know anything about the world outside their dismal little four-block radius in West Baltimore.  My kids here never actually go into Richmond because they're either afraid of it or it just plain doesn't compute.  They think dinner at Ruby Tuesday's is super high class and Olive Garden is beyond the pale.

But here's a little tidbit from my 9th graders that will help you understand just how disconnected they are:

J: "I hate the First Lady."  [apparently because of her healthy-eating campaign]
T: "Who the fuck is that?"
J: "You know, the White House wife."

Just....wow. 

Hooray, hooray, the first of May...

...outdoor fucking begins today!

Come on now. How could I not acknowledge my favorite dirty little line?  It's an old English thing too so it's allright.  A very pleasant aspect of teaching and studying the English language is that, until the famously prudish Victoria ascended, it was a very bawdy language and culture.  I love teaching Shakespeare because it allows me to be fairly dirty in class.  Real English literature isn't happy without the occasional reference to pissing or farting.

On that note, does anyone have good dirty limericks? I'm quite partial to them, so here are a couple of mine:

There once was a fellow named Sweeney
Who spilled some gin on his weenie
Without lacking couth
He added vermouth
And slipped his girl a martini.

There once was a plumber named Lee
Who was plumbing his girl next the sea
She said, "Stop your plumbing!
I hear someone coming!"
Said Lee, "No one's coming but me!"

And some notes from the trenches...

While Mencken said one could never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, he clearly never taught in high school.  It was probably bad enough in his day, but WOW modern kids really don't know their asses from page eight.  One of today's hypothetical questions was "Why are manhole covers round?"  Not a single HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR knew what a manhole was.  Naturally they all think they know everything about sex so they thought the question referred to mens' assholes.  When, in fact, manholes are, you know, those things in streets.  I realize that this is Chesterfield County and there isn't a whole lot of pavement, but..really?  And there was a kid yesterday who didn't know what a chimney is. I mean, come on--these are not exactly esoterica.

I really need to start using the word "esoterica" in class more often, because kids will think I'm saying "erotica" and get all excited about English class.

Jesus, the Customer Service Representative

Really, everyone, I'm not being especially prolific today.  I wrote this over Spring Break when I didn't have wifi and also when I was too busy doing nothing to go find wifi so I could post.

Just south of Richmond is a long, crappy stretch of I-95.  It is crappy for many reasons.  Primarily, it is always busy and not fun to drive upon, but also it passes through most of Richmond's heavily industrialized areas so whatever scenic value the land had was destroyed long before 95 existed.  Add the belching smoke from the factories and the horrendous smell of the huge paper mills and you end up with one really annoying whole.

For whatever reason--proximity to the Capital? Sheer amount of traffic volume? the local Bible bangers have elected this stretch above all others in Virginia to plaster with various Jesus-y billboards.  I find these endlessly amusing.  Most of them are the really admonitory type that say things like "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."  Anyone who already agrees with that doesn't need the billboard; anyone who doesn't won't put any stock in it anyway--especially not after the billboard has just called him a fool. Whether I believe in God or not I don't cotton to being insulted by billboards.  Also, who the hell gets converted by a billboard anyway?  Unless it's a billboard advertising Krispy Kremes which would totally convert me to Krispy Kremes if I didn't worship them already.

One of the billboards offers a hotline phone number. While the others are just sort of amusing, this one weirds me out.

See, I've always wanted to call a hotline for something, just to see what they actually say.  Unfortunately there are really no hotlines that cater to my specific brands of freakazoid, so I've never had a valid option.  I mean, I'm pretty sure that it would be unethical to call the suicide hotline or the cancer hotline and be all "My favorite department store closed in 1990 and I'm out of mixers and also the cat just puked on the rug, WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW????"

I'm not sure what one is supposed to accomplish with the Jesus hotline.  One assumes that it's there in case people feel the need to turn to God.  Once again, though, if one already believes in God, does one need a hotline to convince oneself even further?  Those who don't believe in God would be highly unlikely, I think, to be zipping up 95 and think, "Hey, I've never believed in God before but that billboard totes has a hotline. Maybe I should check that shit out."

Furthermore, what actually happens when you call?  If I didn't believe in God, and I called, the only way I could be reasonably expected to start believing in God is if God actually answered. And if He did this is how the conversation would probably go:

"God here. So you're having some trouble believing in me?"
"Actually, I already do, but I was driving up 95 and I wanted to see happened if I called the hotline."
"You really shouldn't be on the cell phone while you're driving, you know."
"Well, but I'm talking to You. I mean, you would totally keep me from dying, right?"
"That's your guardian angel's job, technically, but I suppose so."
"You're a pretty major deity. What are you doing working in a call center? That's like, what, $10.10 an hour? Assuming you're in the continental US?"
"I'm omnipotent, bro. I can do this AND cause floods.", 
"So how do I know you're actually God and not some dude in Lahore? Can you turn the Philip Morris smokestack into a giant jujube, or something?"
"I could, but would that really make you believe?"
"I told you I already do. I just think it would be really cool if that smokestack turned into a jujube."
"And then you'd wreck the car and we'd be right back to you not talking on the phone while you drive."
"What are you, dude? My mom? Oh, wait--that showed that you're omniscient, right? Cool. But the jujube would still be awesome."
"No jujube, brah. But I'll tell you what--Broad street is seriously backed up. You might wanna take the Mayo Bridge today."
"Sweet! Thanks, God! Hey, could you turn the Mayo Bridge into..."
"NO."

Also y'all should totally scope my buddy/former colleague, Derrick's, blog.  He's a lot less snarky than I am.

reflectionsconnectionnonesense.blogspot.com/

Down in the City of Sighs and Tears

The past century has done some really weird things to our culture.  Since American culture in 1914 was already steaming full ahead to weird, this means that we're now a bunch of damned strange people.  I should probably forewarn you that this is a rant against the suburban ethos, so if you're one of those people who believes that your life only has quality because you live in a cul-de-sac, you should probably stop reading now.  Go eat at TGI Friday's (TM) and have a few mangochocosugartinis before you come back.

A century ago the vast majority of America's population lived in the sticks.  By "sticks," I do not mean places like Frederick County, Maryland--where I have lived, and which is mostly rural.  Frederick County had things like electricity and pavement, even in 1914.  It had one small city and several towns with main streets and brick houses and stuff.  I am talking about places that were a long, long way--like seventy miles--from anything resembling pavement.  Places where the only buildings at all for miles were your own house and barns.  Places where the only living things within thirty miles were either quadrupeds or your relatives. (In some cases, both.)

People in the sticks inherently mistrusted cities.  Popular music did not help; in the 1890s every other piece of sheet music was about some chick from the sticks (see what I did there?) who went to The Big City in search of adventure.  Though of course propriety wouldn't allow direct statements it allowed an awful lot of innuendo.  If you believed sheet music, every girl who ever left the country got knocked up within minutes of seeing Detroit/Philadelphia/Baltimore/New Orleans.  If I had that kind of luck I'd be visiting a new Big City every damn weekend, but these girls of course didn't know what to do and couldn't go home so they became hookers, or showed up at the Society Wedding of the guy who ruined them, or chastised other men.  There was a lot of chastising of men, too--reminding them of their sisters, mothers, sweethearts in Indiana, etc. While women were apparently getting it all over the place, it's a wonder any man ever got laid, with all those fallen women reminding him of his mom.

So it probably comes naturally that when people started to move into the cities, they still mistrusted them, which is probably part of the reason that for the last sixty years people have been trying to get out of cities again.  They still need the city--that whole job thing that made them move there in the first place--but they don't want to actually live in it, so the no-man's-land of suburbia came to pass.  And pass it did; it ran Reebok-shod over the countryside and sucked life out of the cities.

Invariably, suburbs think of their cities as scary, dangerous places.  In some cases this is true; there are plenty of city neighborhoods across the country that are very good places to get killed.  On the other hand, in the city someone will hear you scream (even if, a la poor Kitty Genovese, no one does anything about it).  In the country only the deer will hear you and they don't care that someone's going all Leatherface on you.  In the suburbs someone will hear you scream, but they will assume that you're a recent transplant from the city and that you're the one at fault, not the person murdering you.  The only thing a suburbanite will do is file a complaint with the neighborhood association.

Interestingly, suburbanites automatically fear any and all parts of every city.  I have been told, and quite authoritatively, that the Guilford section of Baltimore is a really bad neighborhood.  This is the area with zillion-dollar neo-Georgian houses; the land of croquet and gin-and-tonics.  But, you see, it's In The City so it has to be a bad neighborhood.  The same people think nothing of Lochearn, which is a pretty good place to get killed--but isn't inside city limits.

So, today, some of my students are en route to the Virginia Museum.  They are terrified because the Virginia Museum is in Richmond. It is, in fact, half a block from where I live.  As everyone knows, if it's inside city limits, it's in a bad neighborhood.

Clearly a bad neighborhood.

The really laughable aspect of this is that most of these kids are from really godawful neighborhoods in Chesterfield County.  One of them actually lives in the crumbling ruins of a 30s motel on Jeff Davis Highway.  But they're terrorized by the idea of going to The Boulevard.  

Weird things, people.  Weird things. 

A happy blind haze

I've never been particularly opposed to the use of weed.  I just don't really care that much because it doesn't affect my life, for the most part. Like every self-respecting college student I tried it a few times and the effect wasn't so thrilling that I wanted to keep smoking the stuff.  A lot of folks claim that it "didn't do anything for them" or they "just got a headache," which implies to me that they're like the people who light a cigarette but don't really inhale the smoke.  They just want to look cool.  I'd rather have a Manhattan, which is legal and doesn't smell like the rotting anus of a week-dead skunk.

This week has done a few things to change my mind.  I've been playing host to an old college friend who cannot get through the day without a few bowls.  Since he's ensconced in my spare bedroom it doesn't affect me that much--the stink stays in there with him--but I've come to realize the long term effects of pot. I figure I'm also safe from retribution because the person in question isn't the type who follows blogs and so will, in all likelihood, never read this.

I'll give some credit to weed: it doesn't make you mean, and those who've been around me after a few too many drinks know that booze can turn you really nasty. Weed doesn't do this but its cumulative effect over the course of twenty-odd years can make you damned stupid.

Not to say that our case subject is stupid.  People who have degrees from William and Mary are not stupid.  Academically, the guy is brilliant--but his common sense is so utterly fried that I'm not sure how he finds his way around life.

Actually, he doesn't.  This is his first visit to Richmond in many years, but he's spent time here before.  It is not a difficult city to navigate, but his helplessness started off on Monday as comic and  has degenerated to a big pain in the ass.

Example 1: I get a call as he's driving in.  He takes the Boulevard exit as instructed, but then wants to stay on the phone so he can get step-by-step instructions. OK, that sort of makes sense.
Me: "Drive past the baseball field. You'll cross Broad street and then you'll see Monument Avenue.  Keep going until you see the Virginia Museum, and then take the very next left."
Dude: "There's a statue..."
Me: "That's Monument Avenue. You're good. Keep going."
Dude: "Is that a college?"
Me: "?"
Dude: "Some big brick thing. It has a sign."
Me: (to self) he can only mean the Museum...wtf?
Dude: "I don't see the street. Oh, wait, that's Ellwood."
Me: "You drove past it. Circle around and come back."
Dude: "How?"
At this point I was ready to send out the Marines, but I was able to talk him back around.

Example 2: After a day touring on his own he was driving back to my place. Once again, he got lost trying to find it despite having been there for two days, but found it on his own.  Another call:
"I'm on your street. Where should I park?"
"Um...wherever you see a parking place."
"But I don't see any."
"Dude. This works like any other city. Find a damn parking place and walk back."
"But where???"
"How the hell do I know? I don't have some magic parking spot finder."

He did eventually park--a block away--which led to Example 3, in which he was so confused by the parking signs which are exactly the same as those in every other city that he took a picture of them to show me so I could decipher them for him. Let me point out that Richmond's parking signs are identical to those I've seen in every other city.

Example 4 was when one of the cats puked in the hallway.  This became a matter of great concern for visiting dude.  Let me point out, here, that he also has a cat.   Cats vomit. It's just something they do.  He not only felt the need to report it, but made it a topic of conversation for five minutes. It's cat barf, man. It happens.

None of these particular examples is anything egregious, but it demonstrates to me that weed will ultimately rot your brain.  So will booze, I suppose, but most alkies I know can still pretty much function as long as they're sober at the time.  This guy is hopelessly lost even when he hasn't had a hit for hours.  Do I know for certain it's the weed's fault? No, but I do know that the man wasn't like this twenty years ago and I don't know what else might have caused it.

So does this mean I think marijuana should remain illegal? No.  It just means I think it's a bad idea to make heavy use of it.  Why shouldn't it be illegal?  I think there are quite a few logical reasons that it shouldn't be.  To me, the biggest problem with illegalized pot is that it consumes far too much time in the legal system, and gets far too many otherwise good people in trouble.  As much as my friend's brain has been addled by pot, he's a good guy and a productive (if often lost) member of society.  However, if his employer did test--he's in the same line of work that I am--he'd lose his job.  If he gets pulled over on his way home from Richmond, he'll probably be in trouble if anyone takes a good look at his car. Not only does this waste police effort, it gums up the court system with things that just aren't that big of a deal.  We have bigger problems.  Marijuana simply does not cause the problems that "bigger" drugs cause.  No drug warfare erupts over pot--it just doesn't generate enough revenue.

What about legalizing other things?  Well--did we learn nothing from Prohibition? You just can't legislate morality.  If people want to do something, they're going to find a way to do it.  And, just like booze in the '20s, making coke and its relatives illegal just means that people will still use them, but that a thriving underworld will blossom.  It has, and it's ruined almost all of our major cities. Even small cities--e.g., Hagerstown--have a gangrenous underbelly because not only do they have their own drug world, they have become distribution centers for the larger cities.

Let's go ahead and legalize all the stuff.  We can regulate it and tax hell out of it, just like we do with booze.  Think of the jobs created: all the stores: "Just Mary Jane!" "Heroin To Go".  And the bureaucracy: by the time the US, in its post-Roosevelt fashion, gets done opening up regulatory agencies in every city, states following suit, and of course Treatment Options for those with Problems, there will be millions of new jobs. Which will mean that the down-and-out who are currently drug users will be able to have productive lives.

Also, we'll be able to play "I Get a Kick Out Of You" on the radio without censoring its lyrics.

A few of the reasons why I'm going to hell.

Let me preface this with the statement that yes, I do believe in Hell.  I'm not entirely clear on the concept  though, because the idea is that you go to Hell if you're a really bad person.  Since Satan is already bad, it seems to follow that he would want the bad people there, so why would he torture the people he actually wants to have around? It seems kind of like peeing in your friends' beer.  I guess the bad people are down with it because maybe they play nasty tricks on each other and, one presumes, Satan.  I mean, once at Homecoming my friends put salt in my beer while I was peeing, and I drank it anyway because that's what friends do and also it would have taken forever to get another pitcher right in the middle of Homecoming.

So, yes, I believe in Hell.  I'm never sure about those people who are all smarmy and oh-so-enlightened who say (usually after I say "You are evil and you are going to burn in Hell") "Well, I don't believe in Hell so I can't go there."  Let me tell you, smartass, I never believed in Newark either because it just didn't seem like a very good idea, but I finally ended up having to actually be in Newark. No matter how much you hate the idea of a place doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that it doesn't suck.  I wonder if one also gets indecent propositions in the main train station in Hell.

I am probably going to Hell because I do have a filter, but I don't always remember to turn it on and without it I can be pretty nasty, though usually in response to something I find nasty in the first place--or just really stupid.  In recent memory:

Student J: "Yo. You look like a fuckin cholo."
Me: (one inch from student's face) "How do you know I'm not? And if I am, do you really want to piss me off?"

Student V: (busting the I'm-a-sexy-ghetto-ho eye-roll and tude) "I don't need no library card cuz I doan read."
Me: "Oh, OK. You made the active decision to be stupid and uninformed. I totally see your point.  Have fun on the pole!"

Whiny, very loud lady berating a stockboy at the store for not having something:  "I'm going to call the manager!"
Me, almost sotto voce: "I'm going to call the SS."

Pseudo-intellectual chick at bar: "Writing a blog is so narcissistic."
Me: "So narcissistic...what? Use the language correctly.  Besides, if I lived your life, I'd want to read about mine."

Damnit, I've got to stop sitting in handcars by mistake.  Oh, shit, wait...

The Steadfast Refrigerator and the Stinky Nothing

So this morning I had a lengthy discussion with my refrigerator.  Not really; because "discussion" implies that the fridge was contributing something to conversation, which it wasn't.  It was, however, contributing a pretty nasty smell to the kitchen. This was why it needed a good talking-to.

You'd think this was actually my fault, that I'd left something in there just a little too long. I'm pretty well known for Refrigerator Science Experiments.  Hell, I once left a thing of leftover Chinese in the fridge so long that it developed representative government. When I got around to throwing it out it formed an allegiance with the mustard and tried to revolt against my totalitarian regime.

Not this time.  I have been pretty good about keeping a clean fridge lately so I don't know what's gone south in there.  I decided that the fridge itself must be responsible so I started grilling it. This was extremely confusing for the cats, who usually and correctly assume that I am talking to them.  The fridge steadfastly refused to acknowledge responsibility; in fact refused to say anything whatsoever.  It hummed insolently and continued to stink.

I have always had a habit of talking to inanimate objects, and occasionally yelling at them (particularly cars and computers, which do not seem to enjoy doing what I need them to do) but I think this was the first time I have caught myself actually expecting to get an answer from something which is not actually alive.

This is how I know it's about damn time for spring break. 

Mini-Post!

Sorry. Grades due in an hour. Can't post.

Sort of.   You know how people talk about comfort food all the time now?  That's what we used to just call "food."  People don't want to do that anymore; it has to be in a category that expresses how New York and up to date you are because of course you don't really eat that stuff every day. You usually eat fusion cuisine, with an amuse-bouche of some shit that normal people wouldn't consider actually a food, and sushi for breakfast (when you're slumming, because sushi is SOOO 90s).  So when you admit that you actually eat stuff like tomato soup and grilled cheese, you call it comfort food.

I am eating tomato soup and grilled cheese because it's one of my favorite things ever.  It came from the school cafeteria, so the cheese should probably really be spelled cheez because it probably really isn't cheese. The bread is anything but artisanal and I'm pretty sure the soup came out of a five gallon bucket that says "Fred's Soup for Schools--Chase City, Virginia."

This is the best goddamn meal I've had all week. 

When I was in high school Special Ed, which we are now supposed to call Exceptional Ed, hadn't become the burgeoning industry that it is today.  Every grade had those couple of kids who were politely called "slow."  You didn't really see them because they existed in their own classes and maybe turned up for gym and lunch.  If a kid happened to be really slow, he ended up at a different school with his fellow brakes-applied learners.

But of course we can't do that anymore because someone, somewhere, might have his feelings hurt and sue the bejesus out of the school system (which doesn't really give a damn about whether people are learning or not, but does care about being sued).

So, in order to keep as many SpEd teachers, counselors and coordinators employed as possible, we keep coming up with changes in diagnoses so that people will have to spend hours filling out reams of new paperwork.

I just learned that Asperger's Syndrome doesn't exist anymore. (It's now properly called High Functioning Autism.)  This didn't really surprise me as I didn't really believe in it in the first place.  The first time I'd ever heard of it was the one miserable year I spent teaching at Parkville High School, which is in a suburb of Baltimore.  I was at a meeting in the beginning of the year when I heard somebody talking about a kid who had what I heard as "ass burgers."  I was shocked because I thought the teacher was talking about the kid's ass, which is of course totally inappropriate, until I gleaned enough from context to realize that she was talking about some supposed disorder.
Of which I'd never heard.
Despite being well-educated and well-read.
And having been in classrooms for three years already.
I soon learned that Parkville had over thirty students diagnosed with Asperger's.  Now, I realize that the air and water in Parkville are not that great; it's a crappy suburb of a crappy city, but still it defies logic that thirty  kids all born within three years of each other in one suburban area are going to have this disorder.
Well, they didn't, because now we've decided that it doesn't really exist.

Eventually, we're going to realize that as a culture we're painting ourselves into a small corner, educationally.  At least, we would if we could find kids who wouldn't whine to their parents about having to paint.  By the time the Karing n Koncerned SpEd folks are done, there will be fewer than ten percent of the population who doesn't have some sort of ostensible learning disability.  And parents will eat it up, because a "disability" absolves them from any parental responsibility.

Has no one figured out that employers do not have Accomodations and Modfications? You show up on time and do your job, or you stop having a job. We have got to stop coddling children who, for the most part, have nothing wrong with them except laziness and indulgent parents.  If they're really that "exceptional," they need to be in an exceptional school where they can draw exceptional bunnies and make exceptional macrame until they're seventy, by which time we will have gone through forty new terms for "exceptional" because that will have become passe and offensive.

I'd say "Will the last person to finish reading this blog please turn off the lights," but I don't have all of your Individualized Educational Plans, so I don't know who has to have a calculator or extra time to flip a goddamn light switch. 

Cause of death: poor grammar

So last night's cocktail hour conversation was on the morbid side.  I don't remember how we got to this point in the first place, but we were talking about causes of death when someone said "what if you die in some really gruesome accident, or murder, or something and they don't know exactly which injury killed you?"

I can answer that because in one of my former lives when I worked at the Bank of Baltimore, I handled credit accounts that belonged to dead people. That is, people who'd been alive once and had a credit account and then died; it's not like we were establishing lines of credit in Green Mount Cemetery.  As part of the job I needed to review death certificates.  It was really pretty interesting; people who work in  credit and collections always refer to deadbeat customers.  In my case they really were deadbeats.

The strange part is that no matter what happens to you, almost every death certificate lists cause of death as "heart failure." Then, it'll give the "secondary" cause, which usually is what happened to you that made your heart stop.  As far as the coroner is concerned, you died because your heart stopped.  The fact that your heart stopped because you got hit by the Crescent Limited is apparently of minor significance.  I suppose this is a bit of a kindness in some cases, if your death is either unbearably tragic or really stupid. I had one case where a college kid blew his brains out; at least his family was spared seeing that every time they had to show the certificate since it still said "Heart failure."  And if I died because I did something really idiotic, I'd rather not have my last public record say "Got drunk and tried to surf on subway rails."

Actually, I have already planned my demise.  It's been done before, but it's just so apt.  Years ago some dude died in his seat in the balcony at the Byrd.  He sat there for about three shows before someone figured out that either he wasn't doing too well or he really liked that movie.  This sounds like a fine plan to me.

So, if I am found dead anyplace but a movie theatre balcony, know that I was probably murdered.  And since the primary cause of death will invariably be "Heart Failure,"  I expect the secondary cause will be "conversation with person who believes 'alot' is a word."