forcing morality

The holidays might have many associations for you, but one of my prime memories revolves around Star Wars. It seems like, come Christmastime, there's always at least one cable network airing at least one of the movies. Yes, they are not technically about Christmas, but, through sheer force of habit, they have become my holiday normative movie experience.

(This is actually a complete lie, because everyone knows the ultimate Christmas movie is still Die Hard...but that's another post.)

I love the original trilogy, but, as I get older and more egghead analytical/academic/nitpicky, I've started to more readily notice its foibles. I'm not talking about the little things, such as why every large structure has an endless pit build into it; seriously, Luke falls down one in Empire, and the emperor is thrown into one in Jedi; throw in the pit where Darth Maul dies in Phantom Menace, and you have a galactic architectural trend with which a Freudian would have a field day. These are puzzling, but they are far from the biggest thing going on.

And I'm not even talking about the lack of blood. Seriously, tons of people (and creatures) die in these flicks. Is there an ounce of blood? Of course not. But I can always explain this away using fanboy/geek logic...after all, light sabers must also cauterize wounds, right?

No, the biggest issue with the Star Wars films is the lack of a coherent moral system. Throw in the prequels, and this becomes much worse, because, as a whole, it becomes impossible to even attempt to divine an operational or consistent meta-ethical structure.

Let's consider the Jedi first. Ignore for a moment that, what was a religion in the original trilogy became some weird relationship with microscopic organisms...we'll come back to this. Are they good or evil?

They definitely posit a Manichean. existence by dividing up the force (or at least the way it's used by its very practitioners) into the light and the dark side. They seem to put themselves as guardians of the light/good. This would mean binary, right?

Well, it seems that way at first, but as they go on, the films introduce contradiction upon contradiction:

• In A New Hope Obi-Wan Kenobi emplores Luke to "reach out with your feelings." Yet the difference between light and dark is confused here, because if you give into these feelings you've been reaching out with, you will be succumbing to the dark side...at least that's what Yoda warns Luke in Empire.
  
• Admittedly, Yoda is talking specifically about anger, not all feelings...but by separating out anger from other emotions and making it a negative, this would seem to play back into the good/evil binary. So Star Wars as a whole buys into binary morality, right?
  
• Not so fast. In Jedi when asked by Luke why he said papa Skywalker was dead (and not just wearing a kooky S&M costume), Kenobi tells Luke "any of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." Does this mean that the Jedis embrace moral relativism? Unless I'm wrong, you really cannot have both points of view and absolutes on the same plane.
  
• In the prequels, Kenobi says "only a Sith deals in absolutes"...and since the Siths are the opposite of the Jedis, does that mean that absolutism=Sith and relativism=Jedi?
  
• Wait a minute...how can you define yourself as the opposite of another group AND as a relativist? Can one really be an agent of light over dark while still believing in moral relativism?
  
• Consider the case of Qui-Gon from Phantom Menace. Qui-Gon was convinced that Anakin Skywalker would be a savior. Yet can you really have a savior if good and evil is, as Kenobi suggests, only a matter of perspective? Isn't salvation the move towards some kind of good? So Qui-Gon shows an operational absolutism.
  
• Ignoring that he too is willing to lie to get his way, Qui-Gon dies convinced that Anakin will be a force of good. Is this why Qui-Gon is seemingly written out of Jedi history, for believing in an absolute that did not work out? When Kenobi sends Luke to Yoda in Empire, he calls the little green guy "the Jedi who trained me." Only problem with this is that Yoda did not train Kenobi...Qui-Gon did. Is Qui-Gon being written out of Jedi history for his false belief in a savior who would act as an agent of good? Or is Kenobi just a pathological liar?
  
• Back to the Sith for a moment. If only Siths believe in absolutes, how do we reconcile this with the explicit statements of Chancellor Palpatine, who is (spoiler alert) the hidden Sith lord? When, in Revenge of the Sith, he is asked (by a conflicted Anakin) about good versus evil, he says "good is a point of view." Well, if good is only a point of view, that doesn't sound all that absolute. Moreover, Palpatine seems more interested in using all emotions...which again sounds more relative.
  
• But if you flash forward in the trilogy, when C3-P0 is trying to explain to the Ewoks why they should fight the empire (this, incidentally, might've only been in the novelization...haven't gotten to Jedi yet this year), he talks about them in terms of good versus evil. To be sure, the whole Ewok versus Storm Trooper battle seems steeped in binary oppositions. Or is C3-P0 just wrapped up in the same pathological lying of Kenobi?
  

So where do the Star Wars movies lie in terms of Meta-Ethics? Frankly, it's all over the map. The prequels do confuse matters more, but even if we shove them into the Great Pit of Tarkoon where they belong, the original series still has some explaining to do.

I did read somewhere that George Lucas didn't like Empire all that much because it trafficked in moral relativism, which made it a dark film...and, one presumes, this darkness made it less merchandise-friendly. This is a shame, because it is that very lack of absolutism that makes Empire my favorite of the whole series.

Admittedly, though, that relativism might not be the best fit for Christmas, but I am willing to deal with it.

on tissues and personal expression

When I pulled down the box of tissues, I was a little puzzled that the top informed me that the box "contains green tissues!" Gee, the box was green, so that was my first hint. However, when I looked at the bottom of the box, it advertised the company's new line of colored tissues, claiming that one could "use the color of tissue that says something about you!"

Damnit. I'm in the middle of quantifying my entire existence for a job application, and that's stress enough. Now I have to coordinate my tissue? Where might I list my tissue color choice on my resume anyway?

Freedom from choice, please!

metal and the academic mind

The smartest thing I ever did in my life (no, it's not finding and tying up a wonderful woman to a contractual obligation...that was pure luck) was my move up north to enter doctoral school. While the career thing hasn't worked out quite as I planned, the other benefits are too numerous to count. I have the best friends in the world, I love my job, and I love thinking about and figuring out stuff...as my occupation! It's truly glorious.

There are, however, downsides.

I'm sitting in front of my computer, pulling out (as usual) all of my work-evasion tactics. I've already completed a full round of my daily web browsing, and neither Twitter, Facebook, or Reader has anything new to offer. I've done some audio editing on one of my band's demos. I've played enough games of Spider Solitaire (which is in a daily work-avoidance rotation with Tetris). And, notably (for the purposes of this e-mail) listened to music.

Today's pre-writing/avoidance music is Dio, which has been fairly regular in the playlist since the singer's death. I love Dio. I saw him on the Sacred Heart tour, and it was one of my first shows. It was awe-inspiring. They had a friggin' fire-breathing dragon on stage!

I always remembered Dio's lyrics as being one of the major draws. They were, as opposed to those from most hair metal acts, actually clever. They were actually about something.

But one of the dangers of being who I am, a trained academic with a culture and media specialization, is that the critical mental tools are always at work. When the song "Sacred Heart" came up, I started to pay attention to the words. The song start off with:

The old ones speak of winter
The young ones praise the sun
And time just slips away

Running into nowhere
Turning like a wheel
And a year becomes a day

The first stanza shows possibilities...a metaphoric examination of how the various age-related intellectual obsessions cause us to forget to see the true minute to minute joys as we live our lives? Cool. But then there's that damn "time turns like a wheel" cliche. Folks, bad Jungians have destroyed that as a legitimate phrase. It's simply hippie crap nowadays, and fairly uninsightful hippie crap at that. Moreover, hippie lyrics have no place in metal!

I still have hopes for something intelligent, though, if not a critical take on human existence. Later in the song, Dio sings:

You can see tomorrow
The answer and the lie
And the things you've got to do

..and I'm now expecting some good resolution. Hell, if I can see the answer and the lie, and if there's something I have to do, then it's gonna be notable, right? You're gonna tell me, and it's gonna be good...right? Right?

So, according to Dio, what do you have to do now that you know the truth of the world? Well,

Sometimes you want it all
You've got to reach for the sun

And find the Sacred Heart
Somewhere bleeding in the night
Oh look to the light
You fight to kill the dragon
And bargain with the beast
And sail into a sigh

It seems the grand answer, now that you know the answer and the lie of existence, is to lose yourself in a nice, long, geeky game of Dungeons and Dragons. Here's the truth of the world! Now use this knowledge to dream of living a nostalgic existence for a time where almost everyone was a slave and lived in filth, where people were repressed and killed for their religion, their national origin, for no reason at all! Weee!

Lest it seem I'm being harsh in my analysis, look at the next two stanzas:

You run along the rainbow
And never leave the ground
And still you don't know why

Whenever you dream
You're holding the key
It opens the door
To let you be free

Why do you dream? You don't know this, but the only real freedom you have is dreaming of a fictionalized existences you will absolutely never have! That no one ever had!

You see? This is what an academic mind can do to you. I guess it's better to realize this stuff than not, but it's still an interpretation I will now never be ever to not see when I listen do Dio.

Sigh. At least it still rocks.

television, texts, and change

There might be a new way of doing things coming. It might completely change the way the media is made. It might alter the stories we can tell...or the stories we can be told. The effects could be momentous.

And it all started with a silly name.

When I first heard it, I have to admit that I fell victim to my own prejudice. After all, I had seen enough juvenile crap at the movie theater and had no real reason to waste any more of my time on something I just knew I wouldn't like. Really, how good could something called Buffy the Vampire Slayer really be? The name alone drove me off (as it would later drive off my parents, who refused to even consider the show in spite of (or maybe because of) my suggestion). I did hear that it was originally a bad movie, so its history also worked against it. But really, more than the name or its past, I realize now that it really was my prejudice that kept me away.

But graduate school in culture studies does strange things to a person. One of my own personal projects upon arriving in Bowling Green was to open myself up to new experiences, to overcome my prejudices. This is why I started watching the various Star Trek series, why I started to follow wrestling. I wanted to know what was going on.

Eventually, this led to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the networks (TNT, I believe) was showing episodes, 2 a day. And my schedule was, at that moment, pretty flexible, so I started to watch. I was amazed at the level of depth, complexity, intricacy, and real-world applicability this admittedly weird horror series contained. I immediately indoctrinated the spousal unit, and we both became really big fans. And while I never reached the level of obsessiveness that some Buffy followers attain, this series (and its spin-off Angel, which I actually think is a better program) made me devout followers of their creator, Joss Whedon.

Whedon, for those of you who might not know, is more than the creator of these shows. He's more than an extremely good and experienced Hollywood writer (responsible for, among other things, the script for the Pixar breakthrough Toy Story). I think he's responsible (at least in part) for signaling a change in the way television works.

A bit of Media 101 background first. One of the most difficult (and seemingly counterintuitive) facts about broadcast television networks is that even though they provide a large volume of programming, spanning multiple genres and styles, they are not actually in the entertainment business. They don't make any money by showing (say) twelve episodes of American Idol each week (with the exception of some ancillary revenue such as licensing fees). No, they get most of their money by selling advertising. They are in the business of selling ad space. In that way, they are really more like a billboard company than an entertainment provider.

The programs are only really there in order to give us reason to watch television advertisement. Show of hands: who would sit and watch commercials on television if there were nothing else beside the sales pitch? And while I realize that some of you might share my obsession with bad infomercials, that's not what I'm talking about.

No, you watch the advertisements that come on television because they happen to interrupt your favorite program. But networks realistically care more about a good audience for advertising than a good audience for, say, drama or comedy. This is not to say that broadcast television does not lead to some great pieces of art; however, their ability to draw in the 18-25 year old male demographic is the real reason for the success of a particular program, not its level of quality or insight.

(This, incidentally, is why all television seems to be marketed towards the youngish...they are the ones with disposable income.)

Cable has obviously changed the landscape, because with cable television (or its sibling, the mini satellite dish), you do actually pay for the content you watch. However, most cable networks include advertising as well. You might pay for the right to watch Cartoon Network, for instance, but the network still operates on the broadcast paradigm.

There are non-commercial exceptions, of course, networks like HBO or Showtime. They have no commercials, but you do have to pay more for them (hence the name "premium channels"). However, the content is generally movies (a medium where the consumer does pay for content). And while they have always had original programming (at least since the early 80s, when I first encountered them), that programming was always more of a filler than a draw.

But then came The Sopranos, a gritty serial drama about a mob family. It was a television show on a non-advertising-based network which really became a "destination" show. People subscribed to the network specifically to watch the show. A television show became a product rather than just something to draw in advertisers, because there actually were no adversisers. And under these circumstances, it is much easier to do Art.

The Sopranos had a real effect on how television could be produced/consumed/perceived. There are a host of other premium channel programs now, and I have many friends who alter their television purchasing options based specifically on program schedules.

There are other things changing the landscape of television, such as the digital video recorder (perhaps my favorite gadget of the last decade). There's lots of work to be done studying the ramifications of DVRs, and this is something I would gladly both read and teach.

How does Joss Whedon fit into this? Well, two things.

First off, consider Whedon's third created program Firefly, a science fiction western. It is perhaps my favorite program of all time. Unfortunately, the network did not like the show that much at all, and it was canceled after less than half a season.

However, a weird thing happened. People who watched and liked Firefly were generally extreme fans of the program. DVD sales were very brisk, more than you'd think for a show that didn't even run a full year. Furthermore, upon the show's cancellation, a letter and e-mail campaign to bring back the program, aimed towards its studio, generated an avalanche of messages, so great that Whedon was allowed to bring it back as a movie, the 2005 release Serenity. Think of the momentousness of this for a minute; A broadcast television show, which never found its audience while on the air, generated so much commitment from its fans (which should, according to the broadcast model, only really be advertising demographics) that it was made into a motion picture. It went from something used unsuccessfully to sell advertising to a commerced piece of art unto itself.

This is not the only reason I believe Whedon's works are notable, though. Also important is the recent renewal of Dollhouse. Dollhouse has not had the highest of ratings, for several reasons; it is aired on Friday night (traditionally a low-viewership night), and it does have a rather complex and morally ambiguous story (it concerns humans who get imprinted with different personalities and leased to customers) which might throw off casual viewers.

However, Dollhouse was just renewed for a second season. What is interesting about this is the resulting press coverage. Many reporters have gone out of their way to note that Dollhouse is one of the lowest-rated television programs in recent memory to be renewed. The show does do a good job of drawing in viewers either via DVR or the internet, but those viewers do not see the accompanying advertising which the network is supposedly in the business of selling. So why, if it fails at its job of bringing a desired advertising viewers, is it being renewed?

While one article quoted a network executive jokingly suggesting it was a preemptive move to stop the expected avalanche of fan letters and e-mails, most of the articles point toward the possibility of high DVD sales...as all of Whedon's shows have done extremely well in that market.

This is, I feel, why Whedon and Dollhouse are both important. Dollhouse is still a broadcast television show, but the actual broadcast and resulting advertising revenue is perhaps its weakest point. Instead, it's become a valuable program predominantly for what would normally be ancillary revenue potential. It is not used to sell something else (the ads) but instead has become a commodity in and of itself, as a piece of art, in spite of being on broadcast television. In other words, it's breaking the traditional model of broadcast television and suggesting something much more text-centric, art-centric.

This feels notable.

(note: this may eventually morph into an academic paper, a class segment, or maybe nothing at all. If anyone has any insight, please let me know.)

N'awlins

I've been working on a paper dealing with the media, New Orleans, and Katrina. For a while, I've been waiting to view When the Levees Broke...I've been backed up on work, but mainly, I've known this would be a very hard watch.

I'm not even halfway through it so far, and I've lost count on how many times I've wanted to hit someone. I am so mad, frustrated, and shaking angry at so many people. The only thing that's more overwhelming is the amount of times I've been horrified or broke down in tears.

My hatred of our current federal administration is at a new high, and I sincerely hope that people pay for their horrible inefficiency, disdain, and utter uncaring stupidity. This is one of the most powerful television events I've ever experienced.

Update: 3:40 into this, and my god, someone make me laugh, please.

don't trust the gub'ment

In my initial preparations for tax filing, I was running through the 1040A and found out there's several things that annoy me.

I teach college. Specifically, I do writing. Many of the things I teach are the type of things that, if they were any good, most high schools should really teach. Should one be able to finish public education and still have to ask: What's an argument?

So I was pleased when I saw that there is a slot for educational teaching expenses. However, since I do college, I don't qualify...never mind the fact that I do so much high school-appropriate stuff.

Also, the spousal unit did have to pay tuition this year, and I know I can claim that. However, according to the form, I can claim it in one of three different ways. Obviously, I was confused, so I called the IRS, and after hearing the same classical "hold" music for twenty aggravating minutes, they told me that there's no real guideline as to which one I should use, and I should really just do all three and find out what works.

Now, I am a supporter of the graduated income tax, but c'mon... This just kind of reinforces my dream that the IRS must really be a dungeon, with dungeonmaster figures managing the phones, letting out maniacal laughs whenever they're able to fully and utterly confuse or torture someone.

mr. stage diver, it's not about you.

The spousal unit and I went to see Modest Mouse last night in Columbus. Ultimate conclusions are two-fold. First, Columbus is just too damn far to drive for a weekday concert...my poor lovely spousal unit had about 4 hours sleep. Secondly, Modest Mouse might be the best band playing today.

I have before expressed my love for their new album. Well, I saw a live clip on Conan (I think), and I was nervous, because the sound on that one was awful. No worries live, though. The band was tight, the sound was amazing, and the bass player was particularly smoking. Lots of songs from their last two albums, of course, but there were dips into the back catalog (most of which I own, but I realized I really have to give it more attention).

The problem was the crowd. As it was in a major college town one week before classes start, it was overrun by "hip" teens and such. Most of them looked identical to each other. Many of them were stoned out of their gourd (often smoking pot directly in front of us). There was one girl behind us for a few songs who insisted on yelling every two seconds, and she sounded like a cat in heat...and not in a good way.

There was a ton of crowd surfing and stage diving. I've always found these to be slightly annoying. Maybe it's the old, curmudgeonly side coming out, but I'd rather pay attention to the band than to lift some jock geek over the crowd or, worse yet, have them jump on me. But it got worse, because some of the people insisted on getting up on stage and staying there...dancing, waving their arms, shouting "look at me." The band was not amused, and the singer eventually made several snide comments, such as "if you want to put on a dancing show, we do have other things we could be doing...we could check our e-mail."

Eventually, the security did finally wake up and start doing their job, and the second half of the show was mercifully light on such knuckleheads. Good thing too, because the band was smokin'.

is there anything more boring than...

So I'm sitting at my home computer working on a paper. Well, working only in the barest possible sense, as there's nothing whatsoever creative in trying to fit a potential journal's style guide. Saturday, I got to go through the entire paper and eliminate any instance of two spaces after punctuation. I just finished changing all the citations from MLA to the journal's own twisted version of Chicago. My next exciting task is to, and I quote from their style sheet, make sure I'm using "single quote marks for integrated quotations within the text, double quote marks for quotes within quotes"...for some stupid reason.

What's even worse: "when quotation marks enclose less than a complete sentence, the closing quote should precede the final punctuation. When quotation marks enclose a complete sentence or more, the closing quote should follow the final punctuation. If the source/page numbers appear with the quotation, place them in parentheses after the closing quotation mark but before the final full point." I'm not sure I even understand this, and I teach writing, for Christ's sake!

What gets me is that Word is utterly no help. I've been a big critic of Word's strange compulsion to screw up my margins and indentations, but it can't automatically change citation styles? Is anyone who works on word processors listening? Us academics could use some assistance.

I need to figure out all this stupid crapola before I get to the real business...gutting a few thousand words out of this essay and doing a new intro. Wee!

the endless summer has ended

On our trips to Florida, I've taken my lovely wife to many of the hot spots, a number of the places I used to hang out, and a decent percentage of the cheesy tourist attractions. Every vacation, I try to make clear just what this particular chunk of Florida means to me, and why my Florida isn't like the Florida that everyone thinks about when they think of Florida...if you can follow that at all.

But damnit, they keep changing my Florida.

When you're in Florida, one of the things that everyone immediately latches onto is the beach. Well, until I got tired of my amazingly frequent and swift sunburns (and subsequent bouts of sun poisoning), I too used to spend some time on lounge chairs looking at the waves. Of course, I also brought either a few 2 liters of Jolt Cola (chug a few of these, and the resulting caffiene buzz makes five hours on the beach seem like five minutes), plenty of cigarettes, and often some cheap beer wrapped in one of those can wrappers that turned it into a "Pipsi" or a "Dr. Pipper." Mind-altering substances somehow help you get more in zen mode with the waves

Even after I got tired of the par-broiling and subsequent pain, I'd still head out on the hour-long trip to Jax Beach. They had the city's only heavy metal bar. They had one beach-side place that must've been happening, because it always smelled like vomit. They had hoardes of rampaging teens cruising down 1st Street at night and a small brigade of laughingly ineffectual bicycle police trying to "run the punks away." Of course, if you actually tried to go on the beach itself during the night, the cops swarmed onto you and would escort you either back to the street or, in a more draconian move, towards their jail...one would guess the officers were taking out some vengeance for people laughing at their speedo bike shorts.

You see, Jax Beach always had a mild identity crisis. They wanted to be a tourist resort. They only wanted families, preferably rich ones, to come, stay in resort hotels, spend lots of money. They wanted to be Daytona without the sin, the fun, or the Girls Gone Wild party bus.

Unfortunately for them, Jax Beach did not attract those kind of people. Instead, it was definitively working class, as much of Jacksonville was. It was blue collar parents letting their kids run amuck. It was construction workers trying to forget their work week by watching bikini-clad babes slar mysterious substances into their skin. It was teenagers trying to forget the mind-crushing boredom of their overcrowded school by diving into the crashing waves...which I'm told are big by east coast standards.

If I were to boil my memories of Jax Beach down to one scene, it would be laying on a towel on the beach in front of the heavy metal bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking a "Dr. Pipsi," half listening to the bar band play Van Halen...all the while trying to figure out how I'm going to get out of work next weekend for a concert.

This was not a tourist beach. It was a working class beach.

This Florida trip, me and the spousal unit finally went back to Jax Beach. It was my first trip in over eight years. None of the bars I remember still stand. There are, as far as I could tell, no places I could stagger up through the sand to a bar deck and grab a long neck. Instead, there's high rise condominium after condominium. There's a beach walk/pavillion built by the same evil bastards who did Baltimore's Inner Harbor. It's safe, clean, free of rowdy teens.

It was bland, sterile, safe, completely unremarkable. It could be AnyBeach, Florida. They've taken my working class beach and made it a theme park.

Coming from Jacksonville, I've always had to tell Northerners that all of Florida is not Disney. Unfortunately, every time I go back, a little bit of Jax has been turned into Disney. It's sad that my former home so much feels the need to live up to outsider expectations as to what it should be.

persecution

A week or so ago, I had several posts on this blog pasted with comments that read "DOUCHEBAG" or some variation thereof. Last night, while walking home from a friend's birthday drinking celebration, I was the victim of a drive-by...a lame type, but one nonetheless.

I was about eight blocks from my house. This suv thingie went around a corner, and I heard what sounded like them running over something. I paid it no mind and kept walking, quietly humming a Grand Champeen song under my breath. The suv went around the block, came back around, and the little bastards shot me with a bb gun in the neck before taking off.

I have no idea what might've brought this on. It's been years since I taught in BG, so it couldn't have been disgruntled students. I haven't cut anyone off or anything, because I rarely drive over the summer. I haven't called the cops on anyone. So this wasn't someone being vindictive...it was just someone being a jerk.

What's surprising about all this is that it's all so 4th grade. Why would someone put anonymous yet unimaginative insulting posts on someone's blog? Why would anyone who hit puberty go around and shoot strangers with a bb gun? Did they not have the intestinal fortitude to give me a wedgie or something?

The sad bit is, I was feeling great. I have been writing, I have been making friends, I had a good night, I cooked out two nights in a row, I was going home to a wonderful spousal unit. After getting bb'd, I just felt pissed, mad, and hoping I can hurry up and get a job and move away from undergrad housing areas and be an adult.

Next, I fear I'm gonna have to start dodging water baloons.

best site on drive back from FLA

On the drive home from FLA (and there will be more about that one coming up), we passed the fine edifice pictured on your right. Naturally, it inspired some conversation.

There was a time when I subscribed to the "a church must look 'a Church'" philosophy, and by that standard, this fails miserably...it looks like a reject from the now defunct Heritage USA park. This is not glorious, and it does not enhance the aura of anything.

I have long since quit thinking churches have to look any certain way. Instead, I now believe that those glorious cathedrals really are more about the institution showing how big and important they feel...and while I don't know exactly what God might think, I'm pretty sure He doesn't need his ego stroked. And if the public display of power and importance is just about the church showing "I'm bad," then that's the kind of thing that puts more people off religion than anything else.

But what about Stone Jesus? Is this just a big "look at me!"? Yes, this certainly draws attention to its subject, but at what cost? Does this not also just make the religious organization sponsoring it look silly?

I did notice on my drive an increasing amount of visual displays of faith. There are at least two Christian trucking companies out there, a few Christian hotels, and any number of commuters who feel the need to tell the world what they believe?

I guess this all ties in to the "I support our troops" car magnets and ribbons. While the sentiment is nice, I'm always wondering how exactly these people support our troops. I have friends and ex-students who're military, and I know that there are things they'd rather have from us than people putting yellow magnets on their Hummers.

Likewise, when I look at Stone Jesus, I've gotta think if all the effort put into this statuary could've gone to something useful, to either God or mankind. Or, as my wife said, "imagine how many starving people they could've fed with the money they spent on that."

returning to the blog with bitter thoughts

Yes, I've been away. Long, explanatory e-mail coming. For now, just this:

I really hate daylight savings time. I hate everything about it. I hate having to go around changing clocks. I hate losing an hour. I hate knowing that tonight, I will have to go to bed at what my body thinks is 10pm so I can get up tomorrow at what my body thinks is 5am.

Lousy politicians. Lousy farmers. PICK A TIME AND STICK WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mental state

In response to my last post, I have already recieved an e-mail and an international call from a worried friend. All I can really say is, to quote "Crash" Davis, "I have been known to howl at the moon."

Anyway, the lovely spousal unit will be home today, so all is well.

deconstructing food tv

Yes, I still don't have time for this (I haven't e-mailed my own mother in weeks, yet I post here), but Anthony Bourdain has a great take on the various Food Network personalities. Read it if you're as much of a geek for this channel as am I.

because I'm such an expert...

I have come to some conclusions about the rap genre. As I see it, there are three possible directions. The first, actually attempt to say something worthwhile, is guided by the example of Public Enemy. As this is not tremendously popular with the prepubescent suburban audiences, most new artists don't seem to follow it.

Instead, a lot of rap artists attempt to "tell it like it is" in the "hood." This was at least notable when it was news, but by this point in time, is there anyone who really doesn't know what it's like in the hood? Is there anything new to be said?

Instead of following that model, I suggest more aspiring rappers follow the "let's see how many obscenities and shocking things I can throw into a song" model of rapping. But please, do it honestly. Follow the example of 2 Live Crew and actually do the dirty limericks and nursery rhymes...it's certainly more pure.

Not that I'm a major rap fan anyway...I've never really seen the abandonment of vocal melody to be a step forward (which is also why I don't really dig Cookie Monster Metal)...but if you're gonna be inane, go all the way with it, damnit.

Who knows? You might end up with a career as long-lasting as Luther Cambell and with as much integrity as Snoop Dogg (whose web site, strangely enough, doesn't mention his line of porn videos).

pressure buildup and release

For the last few weeks, I've mostly been focusing on my classes. There's a lot to do...fix the plethora of stupid errors that seem to endlessly creep up in my web material, battle with the bookstore, battle with technology (or lack thereof), answer e-mail questions from people who obviously haven't read the syllabus (or anything else, for that matter), deal with the droves of dropped students...so I haven't given a lot of attention to the myriad of other things that have come up (including, as some of you particularly know, answering e-mails...soon, I promise).

One of the biggest things that has been simmering away is the Great Academic Job Search 2006-2007. I've been thumbing through the postings and such, but I haven't actually sent anything out yet. The teaching work has been one big reason, but perhaps the most important excuse for this procrastination was that I was waiting for a response from a university press who expressed interest in working with me.

Flashback: In 2003, I was finishing up my dissertation. I was lucky enough to get into the American Studies Association. For those of you unfamiliar with this group, they hold what is undeniably the Mac Daddy of all culture studies-oriented academic conferences. I was fortunate in that the panel which accepted me was chaired by uber-scholar Janice Radway and also included Lawrence Levine, also a heavyweight in the field.

It was quite a rush to get regular e-mails from two people who are very influential in my field. The conference itself was magnificent...there was always an interesting panel to go see, and those of you who've gone to lesser conferences know how unique that is. The panel I was on went swimmingly...and no one laughed at me. There was plenty of stuff which covered professional development. Most important for me, however, I recieved a letter from a major university press (who shall remain nameless) who was interested in meeting me...and if this worked, it would be an academic coup.

I pulled out my vita. I polished off the best chapter of my still-in-committee dissertation. I wore a nice tie. And the meeting itself went swimmingly...the assistant editor of the press seemed genuinely excited about my work and the possibility of it fitting in their press. A few weeks later, I was asked for a copy of the full dissertation and a book revision plan.

It took me a little while to get the revision plan to them because my funding had run out, and I was adjuncting at several institutions...in disciplines with which I had no experience....but I eventually got it done and mailed off.

Now, I've never written a book before, so I naturally assumed that the revision plan would cover how I planned to revise the manuscript...and that the press would read both of them. When I finally heard from the press, they were confused about the proposal...and it was very clear, from talking to the editor in chief, that no one had actually read the manuscript. Admittedly, since I wrote the proposal as a companion piece to the dissertation, reading it without reading my big chunk o' work would be a bit puzzling...so I told them I would take another swack at it, now that I (supposedly) knew what they wanted.

The next draft went through several iterations, and it did take a while...I adjuncted for another year before landing my current job, and it took a long time to cope with the heavy grading load that accompanies a 5/4 load in composition (in which I've had very little formal training, so I was behind from the git-go). But when I finished, I was very pleased with the results. It showed a tremendous growth in my thinking. It spelled out my research questions in explicit detail. It was solid and had real potential to make an impact. So, last April, I sent the thing to the press.

Now, as I knew I would be getting back on the job market, I really wanted to hear positive things from the press. My heavy teaching load since the dissertation had kind of put a crimp on the amount of research I could do, and as a result, I haven't published as much as I should. A book contract, however, would be pure gold. It would show that I had some research potential, and it would show that I could put out stuff. Pretty much, it would have, if not guaranteed me a job, then at least really bumped me up in most school's "potential hiree" stack.

So I waited. And then I waited some more. The press's 12 week deadline passed. I waited. After 4 months, I sent a polite inquisitive e-mail. And then I waited. I sent another e-mail. And then I waited some more. I sent another e-mail, cc'd to the press's editor in chief.

Today I got the reply. They do not want to work with me. The story, as the e-mail tells it, is that they couldn't figure out what my research focus was. When I read this, I immediately resisted the urge to grab a whiskey sour (it was, after all, 10:30 this morning) and opened my file of the revision plan I sent them...and in the third paragraph, starting on the first page, was the paragraph that explicitly spelled out my agenda.

If they just didn't like my work and thought I sucked as a scholar, that would be bearable. If they didn't think I fit into their press, that would be understandable. But it was clear to me that they only browsed my proposal and never put real thought into my project. I am going to take great delight in deleting these people from my e-mail address book.

I guess it's a fact of life for me as an academic, but I think I have to start assuming that no one I will encounter will be professional. In my 3+ years on the job market, I've seen some unbelievably rude and amature behavior, and my first university press experience just backs it up. I would be happy if people would just take their job seriously and realize it had severe implications in the lives of others.

I know that if any of my ex-students are reading this, they might giggle...I have, after all, taught while wearing Hawaiian shirts...but that's just mode of dress. In my actions, both in the classroom and in other academic settings, I've always made it a point to take whatever I was doing very seriously. I wish others would do the same. I'm hoping to find out differently, and I really want a future employer and a university press (anyone have any leads on either?) to prove me wrong.

So, granted, I'm feeling a little pressure now. Without a book contract, my application packet might look research-light. Is it worth while to bother with the job market? Do I try to rush out some stuff and neglect the teaching? Do I stare at the wall and listen to Motorhead entirely too loudly?

Thank goodness the Black Swamp Arts Festival is back! Tomorrow, we go see The Reverend Horton Heat. The spousal unit and I are volunteering Saturday afternoon, and then we're back up for several bands I don't really care about...but friends will be there, and the beer tent will be open, so it's all good.

Don't you wish you were in BG?

post-vacation insights 3--visitors

When one is from Florida, one has to deal with tourists to at least a certain extent. Yes, I know that tourists go many places...hell, when we lived in Charleston, SC, we had to put up with a ton of them...but Florida basically depends on them for its livelihood.

This overreliance on outsiders (whom the natives invariably resent) is a major cause to the unique Florida character, a major reason why Florida (and Floridians) do things a little differently...and are themselves a little different.

Some areas of difference? Some are nice and sweet...the Florida Welcome Center on I-95, for instance, gives out free samples of orange or grapefruit juice...sweet literally. Some are slightly incongruous...every city in Florida (at least among the coastal/tourist areas) plants palm trees everywhere they can...although the trees are native to very few of the places that grow them. Then, as everyone knows, Florida can get seriously weird...

Case in point: My parents accompanied the wonderful wife and I on a trip down to St. Augustine. For those of you not familiar, St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US, and it is one of the places made famous because Ponce de Leon supposedly thought it contained an actual fountain of youth. They also have a Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum. My wife wanted to see a bit of Florida, so we went for a visit.

The whole way down, however, I kept seeing billboards for a place which billed itself as "The Florida Visitor's Center." They had tons of black billboards with either orange or fluorescent yellow writing advertising alternatively "Indian River Citrus," hundreds of tourist shirts, free orange juice, and the like. The clincher for me is that I saw one advertising a "13 foot alligator." Naturally, I wanted to go see this. Of course, my loving parents refused to believe I was serious and drove straight past the place as I pouted in the back seat.

So we went to St. Augustine, which is actaully pretty nice in spite of being touristy. The secret is that St. Augustine has never been invaded by the major corporations. There are no mouse ears, there are no superhero rides, and none of the restaurants are owned by b-movie stars. It's more kitch than commercial, which is nice. But you can still see historic stuff and get a sense that you are actually in Florida instead of some generic theme park. We wandered around the tourist streets, stared at the river, bought some 2/$5 teeshirts, and trooped around the fort.

On the way back, we stopped at the King's Head British Pub, which is just a nice recreation of an authentic pub run by an authentic Englishwoman. As my Mom's from England, she always feels at home here, and I like it for the good beer selection (I had a Fullers ESB) and good British food...their stilton onion soup is excellent, as is their fish and chips. This place is cool because even though it's just out of a tourist destination, it's not touristy at all...it's just a cool local hangout.

After dinner, we drove back to Jacksonville. I managed, however, to convince the parental units to detour to the Florida Visitor's Center for which I saw so many billboards on the trip down...I think the beer and food helped in that regard. But I'd seen enough serious tourism...I wanted my cheese.

The center was, in a word, fantastic...everything I hoped it would be. In terms of layout, it was essentially a gas station with an extended grocery area filled with all the merchandise you could imagine. They had tons of cheap teeshirts (I got one that had a picture of an alligator and the words "Bite Me...Florida"), tons of silly gator and flamingo knicknacks, gator jerky, key lime candy (in the shape of alligators), and every other bit of cheap crap you could imagine.

They did in fact still have the 13 foot alligator, which was nice. It was stuffed, not live, which was a little bit of a bummer. It was, however, surrounded by hundreds of stuffed gator heads, which made it look like some weird Aztec monument gone seriously awry...which of course made me love it all the more. So we got our cheap, kitch tourist stuff and went home...and I was fully content.

The highlight of the trip was getting a balance of all the tourist styles save the plastic megacorp variety. Let's face it...none of the touristy things that people experience in Florida have any real relationship to the state. It's not really a princess-stuffed land of illusion. Neither, however, is it a historical paradise. And actual Floridians never actually eat gator jerky or drink out of a mug made of shells...unless they're deliberately being stupid, like me.

Tourism is always a game, a ruse. Tourist areas want people to come there, gain some overly romantic or excitement-filled notion of the surroundings which will ensure return visits, spend a whole lot of cash, and then go the hell away. So reality doesn't enter into it at all...but this is obvious to anyone who's either lived in a tourist area or been a tourist themselves.

The reason that tourism holds a certain amount of charm is the varieties of games played, the different narratives of place sold, the subtle line between "we need you" and "get the hell out" on which every tourist-scavanger dances.

I've always preferred the kitchy variety because in many ways, it's the most subtle. "Yes, you may think these shell lamps are junky and goofy...you're right, they are...and you may think that I'm a hick for making and selling them...but you're gonna buy them, and I'm taking money off your idiotic ass in the process...so who's the hick here?" You know every purveyor of junky stuff is thinking this.

Tourism as warfare...it's definitely a topic worthy of further thought...

rules for badasses

from my own personal observations:

1) You cannot be a badass and be in love...even if the significant other is also trying to be a badass. Holding hands kills the effect.

2) You especially cannot be a badass and be with children. There's something about telling your kid "okay, honey, you can get your picture taken with the Easter Bunny" that also kills the effect.

3) You cannot be a badass at the zoo or at any family friendly surroundings. You are not tough looking at penguins.

4) If you are at the zoo, no amount of leather or trenchcoat will
help.

5) Please leave camoflauge to the army.

requiem

I saw black. Swirling colors, blending, changing, layers upon layers, but in the end, it's always black...or so it seemed.

Life often turns to black, sometimes quick, sometimes slowly, but always first through subtle shadings and blends of blue and purple...and these are the colors that dominate...the colors that haunt...the colors that skewer themselves into the recesses of my vision when I look. Yes, they are the colors of bruises, the colors of wounds, the colors of pain, the colors of sharp, brutal impact. They are the colors I saw when I looked at my bruised left pinky toe's nail.

As often is the case, the pain came in the middle of celebration, of raucous hedonism, of unbridled joy. There was the joyous cacaphony of gathered friends, the warmth of the summer's sun warming the gathering place, the allure of summer evening dew in the air. The sounds were soon to fade, as usually is the case when that harsh mistress who goes under the subtle guise of Miller High Life is involved. The summer sun was soon to recede and fade, giving way instead to the biting wind and snowy sponge that is an Ohio winter. And the dew was soon to turn into a vicious, biting damp that would penetrate your flip-flop and aggrevate the subtly burning athelete's foot subtly brewing within the toes.

The act itself was inconsequential, merely a gentle stubbing. There was pain, yes, there is always pain, but it was soon blotted out by the festivities of the evening. There were friends to talk to, hot dogs to be eaten, beers to be consumed, subsequent hangovers to be suffered, and the hope, the joyous hope that soon, the good times would continue, while the pain would fade.

The pain did indeed fade, but the bruising instead came upon the scene. The pinky toe's nail started to turn yellow, almost jaundiced. The yellow darkened as the blood began to flow, then later harden. Soon, darkness overcame the pinky toe nail, which sat as a dark speck on the end of the foot. The pain turned into a bruise, which itself turned into a dark reminder that the day of celebration, of hedonism, of warmth had passed, and that as new growth occurred, the blood-stained nail would be there to remind all of the death of those former joys...one could not bring them back, anymore than one could un-bruise the pinky toe's nail.

As the blood cells coagulated, bound together in the form of a bruise-ridden mass, other relationships broke apart. The sun disappeared into a grey, snow-ridden haze. The warmth was blown away by arctic blasts. The friends dispersed, some to other parts of the country, some across the oceans to distant shores, some deep into the recesses of their own depression and angst-filled minds.

Yet bruised pinky toe nails cannot last forever...sooner or later, new growth will inevitably push out the scars of yesteryear. And indeed, as time passed, it eventually became time to sever the remains of the bruised nail. I stood over the nail, clippers in hand, ready to cut. But I could not do so, not right away. As the nail was about to be restored to unblemished health, I felt I would be accursed if I let the moment go without an appropriate memorial.

The losses of the last year had to be addressed. To my departed friends...you are missed, you will never be cut away...unlike the bruise, part of you will stay with me forever, whether you now abide across the oceans or simply in the neurotic reaches of your over-stressed skulls. Bruises fade...but you will not.

Yes, it's true that the pinky toe nail is now snipped. The bruised nail surface now resides in the trash bin. But new growth has taken its place. New growth will always occur. A new summer will soon dawn. New warmth will come. New dew will settle. New friends will be discovered. And a new nail, already growing strong, healthy, and clear, will continue to guide and guard the pinky toe.

Because black is not forever, not even in the case of bruised pinky toes.

It's that time of year...

Okay, this is the time for the obligatory moment o' depression. You see, I've been on the academic job market for quite some time. Come holidays, when I visit with family (direct and in-laws), I always am forced to give them the job update...that essentially nothing is happening, there is no sign that anything will happen, and I most likely might be doing part-time work forever.

What makes all this worse is that most of the jobs for which I'm applying are in the English field. Most major English departments do their initial interviews at the Modern Language Association conference. Well, it started yesterday, and rather than being wined and dined by senior faculty from around the world, I'm sitting here in Bowling Green, staring out my window, looking at the snow-covered shrubbery, and contemplating a trip outside to look for child-assembled snowmen to knock down and beat up.

On top of that, I'm still short of classes for the upcoming semester. I have interviewed at Mercy College (a Catholic nursing school) for a class and tutoring, but they haven't gotten back to me as of yet. I have one BG class (Ethnic Studies again) and one UT class (a Comp II that has a text I hate, and that I have no real idea how to teach).

So I am gonna just keep focusing on the plusses. Playoff football starts soon. There is a New Year's party, so I'm guaranteed at least one really good drunk. My wife has work, so the chances of me having to become the next Fred Garber are less than they were two weeks ago. Yay.