tuning out

It only took a few days for it to happen. And while I'm happy to have direct evidence of some religious doctrines, I just didn't think it would come when I was teaching.

The first week of school always means lots of adjustments. I have to wear pants, shave, and look presentable...well, at least as presentable as I ever get. I have to be prepared. I have to have notes. I have to reestablish the to-do list routine.

Then I get up in front of strangers and talk. I have to look like I know what I'm talking about, and do so while making them pay attention. Personally, I cannot succeed at this by trying to be entertaining or friendly. Rather, I slam them with information delivered in a "this is vital" tone of voice. Luckily, I do in fact know what I'm talking about, because otherwise, I would be scared out of my mind.

There is normally routine to help me through. I have my standard "first day of class" bits for my Comp I (which I have taught continuously since 2003). However, this semester, I also had a section of Writing About Literature, a course which I've never taught before...so I had to develop a new first day discussion/lecture. So I pulled material from other lessons from other subjects, boosted the level of intellectual intensity (after all, I have mostly upper classmen), and I funneled it all into the study of literature.

Halfway through the first session, however, I realized my attention was wandering. My consciousness was worried about what I would do when I got home...when I hung out with friends, would I drink wine or bring beer? I screamed to myself, "Hey, idiot boy...you're in the middle of teaching!" Then I focused on the lecture I was in the middle of delivering to find out, much to my surprise, that I was actually firing on all cylinders in spite of paying no attention to what I was doing...and I didn't even have the "I've done this 1.7 million times" excuse to blame.

It's not the first time I've entered a trance state. When I do student conferences, I often find myself giving the exact same advice, over and over. And fairly regularly, I go on auto-pilot during these sessions. A few years back, however, there was a conference where I could swear I had an out-of-body experience and could not just hear myself carrying on this conversation with a student, but actually see it happen....from a position somewhere up in the ceiling.

Later that night, post-lit class trance, I was on a friend's porch, bottle of Merlot in one hand and a cigar in another. I asked mycolleague if she'd ever done the trance-state teaching thing, and she replied, utterly unsurprised, "Oh yeah, it happens pretty regularly."

Trance/fugue states? Alternate consciousness? Out of body experiences? I think teaching might be the new Eastern religion.

diversity, music, and art

Yesterday, I posted my internet meme post of 15 albums in 15 minutes. Yeah, i don't normally do these things, but I needed a mental break from conferences and class prep. Hey, at least I didn't tag anyone...which is important, because I hate coercion...unless I'm getting paid to do it.

Anyway, within a stupidly brief amount of time, a friend of mine pointed out (on some social networking site...apparently, she's too good to comment here) that I had a very "dudely" list. Yes, it's true...there were utterly no female artists on it at all.

After I saw this comment, I had to go off to my lit class. We had a bit of discussion on the general concept of heroes in general. When I asked what the first thing that came into my students' minds was with the word "hero," the answer was, of course, super heroes (hey, an area of specialty!). So we made a list and talked about what being a superhero (and, by extension, heroes in general) meant. After class, one student came up to me and asked if we were indeed going to talk about how heroes seem to be male and white. I assured her that yes, it was all part of my maniacal plan.

Of course, when I started driving home, the two incidents coalesced. When thinking about my lit course's readings, I did think about the general variety I tried to include (working class, Latino, different genres, and so forth)...but it still wasn't as diverse as I would've liked...there is only two black authors, for instance, but as this was my first time teaching this class, I had to pick from people I knew. I was constrained by my own experience.

Then, I started thinking of my albums. Of course, Aimee Mann (most likely I'm With Stupid) should've made the list. Caitlin Cary, if I had more time to think, would've also been in serious consideration. But what other female artists? No one came to mind. I also realized my list was very, very white. Yes, Living Colour would've rectified this (and, as they were one of my most important high school bands, they would've earned their place)...and Hendrix of course was a serious contender. And I love Motown, Sam & Dave, and Taj Mahal, but greatest hits albums and box sets seemed cheating. But there was no other variety...no Latino artists, for instance.

For music, there's a certain narrative at work which determines the music I've experienced. I started off with heavy metal (the British variety more than the American/glam-inspired variety), as I was particularly drawn to the virtuosity and power of the guitar-playing (undoubtedly because of my personal inadequate feelings of my own masculinity, or something like that). Yet metal is also a fairly non-diverse genre, so there just weren't a lot of non-white male options to chose from even if I would've thought of artist diversity at the time. At any rate, Vixen did nothing for me.

When I started to wane on the "shock value" and the "play it close to the genre conventions" aspect of much of the later metal I heard, I moved to alt.country. Something about the Johnny Cash-meets-Replacements sounded more "real" to me (whatever that means) while still stressing the power and crunch of a guitar. But was it more diverse? Well, there were a few women, but that was about it. I then moved to greasy bar rawk, but it was pretty much, in terms of diversity, the same thing.

I like to think that when it comes to music, I'm not really constrained anymore by genre conventions, by labels, or any of that...but unfortunately, I still tend to move within predictable music styles. Yes, I'm more diverse than I ever have been in terms of the artists to whom I listen, but my friends can still easily point out "Mike Music." And unfortunately, what counts as MikeMusic is still mostly performed by a narrow group of people.

I know I should be diverse. I know I'm missing out by not following a wider variety of artists, and I do want to expand what I experience. However, in the music, I'm constrained by my tastes, and I just need to hear the power of a G chord. Diversity is a definite requirement of the lit class, so as well as wanting to include a variety of writers, I know I must do so. Music is different, though, because while I know I want diversity, I'm also unable to give up the sound of a raunchy guitar.

I only see one solution: a government grant to increase the diversity of rawk performers by getting a guitar and a distortion pedal into every child's hands! A Marshall in every bedroom! Loud noises as a government mission!

15 albums in 15 minutes

So, I got tagged in one of those "15 albums in 15 minutes" things. Rather than use a social networking site, however, I decided to post my response here.

1. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. When I first heard this, I hated it...but, for some reason, I couldn't stop listening to it. There was so much variety, so much unexpected in the album. This disk had to teach me how to listen to it. In doing so, I had to rethink a lot of my conceptions about music. Plus, "Heavy Metal Drummer" still makes me want to dance (which I do not do).
   
2. AC/DC, Powerage. Yes, it has absolutely no hits. Yes, it is the AC/DC album most people are least likely to hear. But this one is their blues album. It is loose, free, and cool. Moreover, it's very pissed off. "Down Payment Blues" alone wins this album a "desert island" slot for its snarky feelings towards poverty, in addition to having the best sounding guitar solo of all time.
   
3. Slobberbone, Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today. Slobberbone is one mighty live band, but this is their shining moment of studio glory. Forget that, because of its mix of country, rawk, Replacements-esque punk, and aggression, you can't really classify in most normal genre terms. It hits hard while being surprisingly intelligent.
   
4. Two Cow Garage, Speaking in Cursive. Two Cow, as most readers know, is my favorite band. This album is good proof why. Lyrically, this album can be summed up as "What happens when you realize you will never be a superstar musician but still can't quit the music game?" As someone who has similar feelings about his chosen career, I can relate.
   
5. Black Sabbath, Volume 4. Of course, Sabbath was gonna be here. This is a wall-to-wall album. Just listen to "Supernaught," which was doing what grunge tried (and failed) to do decades later.
   
6. Frank Zappa, One Size Fits All. This is the perfect mix of humor, virtuosity, and attitude. I'm not sure it gets more beautiful than "Sofa No. 2" or more jaw-dropping than "Po-Jama People." Bonus points for the unexpected heart of "San Ber'dino."
   
7. Drive-By Truckers, Decoration Day. DBT is the band which made me rethink southern identity, and this was one of the albums which served as a main soundtrack to my adjunct "years of hell."
   
8. Metallica, ...And Justice For All. It is impossible to explain the impact that Ride the Lightning had on me...it sounded utterly like nothing else I've ever heard. Justice, however, is better...the band at their peak.
   
9. Son Volt, Wide Swing Tremolo. Son Volt came along right at the time where the cliches of heavy metal were getting to me. This album felt somehow more real, more organic.
   
10. The Faces, Ooh La La. Why did it take me so long to discover the awesomeness of this band? There's very few feelings better than riding with my spousal unit, singing "Just Another Honkey" while plowing through the countryside.
    
11. Rainbow, Richie Blackmore's Rainbow. An album of startling depth and variety that is utterly uncontainable by genre labels. Neither Blackmore nor Dio ever showed this much range elsewhere.
    
12. Judas Priest, Sad Wings of Destiny. Beautiful, sprawling, orchestral. This is where heavy metal should've went, instead of the shock value genre it became in the 80s and 90s.
    
13. The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds. The first album I played for my beloved (later to become my spousal unit).
    
14. Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street. It actually took me ages to find this on cd, but when I did, whoooboy. The Stones had more range than anyone suspects. This whole album is a Saturday night party that stretches into Sunday morning hangover...in a good way.
    
15. Green Day, American Idiot. I'm one of those who think Green Day really never did a bad album (except maybe Insomniac), but this is perhaps their most solid effort. Moreover, I was astounded at how much it made my students think and question things they thought they believed. Plus "Letterbomb" is an awesome rock song.
    

New York, escape to and fro

You know the saying "It's the journey, not the destination?" I would really like to find the person who said that and repeatedly punch him/her in the prefrontal cortex.

I had occasion this week to transport a vampire to New York City. We got up early for the long drive. Ohio was fine. Pennsylvania seemingly never ends. Seriously. It goes on forever. You enter Pennsylvania on I-80, travel 300+ miles, get in sight of the Welcome to New Jersey signs, and then you undergo an instant quantum transportation back to the Ohio border. Little known fact: remember the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where the Enterprise was caught in a temporal causality loop for several weeks? That was based on Pennsylvania's interstate.

Furthermore, about 35% of said never-ending interstate system is currently under construction and down to one lane. This adds even more time, but what can one do, other than raise a fist to the sky and curse Obama's communistical socialism? How dare he spend money on something helpful and productive rather than just give us bribe checks as did his predecessor.

At one of said construction areas, traffic stopped. After five minutes, I turn off the car. Five more, we get out and wander the interstate. Helpful truck driver behind us tells us there's a major accident ahead. We see three separate helicopter ambulances. Then, 20 minutes later, they begin to shunt all interstate traffic onto a back road. About 20 minutes after that, they let those of us past the exit turn around, go up the on-ramp, and join the endless flotilla of vehicles clogging the isolated two lane country road. Eventually, we get into a very small town where, no lie, people are sitting outside their trailers staring at the line of cars while drinking canned beer...for entertainment purposes, one would presume. Two hours after we initially stopped, we get back on the interstate, ten miles down the road. By this point, though, the interstate is open again...so it would've been quicker if they would've just left us alone.

We wind our way into New Jersey and follow the handy online directions to the NJ light rail station...which is fun, because although said station was in a relatively affluent area, the township apparently doesn't believe in either streetlights or legible street signs. At said station, there is no mention of parking payment, meters, or anything else to suggest exactly how we're supposed to make sure my car didn't get towed. The train ride into Penn Station was uneventful, but Penn Station itself was about 128 degrees, with 98% humidity. This made hauling the vampire's suitcase over the top of the subway gates real fun.

For my solo trip back to Ohio, I woke early...around 6:30, thanks to the cars at the nearby intersection blowing their horns repeatedly and a neighbor moving what I can only assume is a piano out of the third-floor walkup. I walked the three city blocks to a bagel factory (recommended by our awesome hostess). While munching on a fresh out-of-the-oven everything, I:

• walk the seven blocks to our original subway stop; they don't sell tickets.
  
• I then walk one block to another entrance; their ticket machine is broken.
  
• I stagger the two blocks to one of the Times Square stations, knocking tourists and schmucks out of my way. The station has a working machine, but you can't get on the line I need from that location.
  
• One block away was the Times Square station that did grant access to my line. The building was closed for repairs.
  

So I crawl on my hands and knees the three blocks back to my original stop and actually got on the train. This ended up being a seventeen block walk (Manhattan city blocks, mind you) to get a bagel and a subway ride, which takes about an hour...and although it was early, I was tired, thirsty, and utterly drenched with sweat.

From that point on, though, the trip was relatively smooth. I negotiated New Jersey's mass transit with no problem. My car was still there, both untowed and without ticket. I found the interstate and drove westward, towards my beautiful spousal unit. Eventually, my sadness at the vampire parting just turned into anger and political activist resolve. I became road-weary, but it only caused me to do something stupid once (when I accidentally entered a YouPass toll lane and had to back out without getting hit). There was still a metric crap-ton of construction in Pennsylvania (which, once again, refused to end), but there was only one stretch where I averaged four mph.

Still, in spite of the good company on the ride into the city and the relative freedom of my return drive, I think the destination was far more momentous than the journey, which just annoyed me incessantly. I just wonder if Snake Plissken would agree.

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!

issues and six strings

We were playing last Saturday on the deck of a Toledo bar called Woodchucks. After a set spent staring at the stars, enjoying the smell of a deep fryer, and blasting through our set, we hung out, drank, listened to the other bands.

It's the end of the night. I'm hauling my equipment out of the patio, when the sound man and the drummer for one of the bands (a rockin' power trio from Detroit) see me. The sound man says "You guys sounded great." The drummer says "guitar god!" I was a bit stunned as I thanked them before hauling my pedal board into my car.

It's during Junior High. My brother's jamming with some friends, and I take my first guitar (a "Chicago" brand Les Paul copy) in the hopes that someone will let me play through a real amplifier. I plug in my guitar, but I can't stop it from squealing. I feel like an amateur.

It's high school, and a bass player friend is having a jam session at his practice room. I find out about it when I stop by randomly, in the middle of a long drive I only took so I could smoke. Everyone else looks like they're having a good time playing, I think, as I watch them from outside.

It's a year after graduation. Some friends of mine are in a band, and their guitarist quits. They ask someone else immediately to play with them. They don't even consider asking me, and when I realize, I sink a little more.

It's three years after graduation. I have been playing guitar for a while now, but I can't get anyone to play in a band with me. I've had some spectacular failures of band auditions (one group was playing AC/DC but switched keys in the middle of a song). I've had an ad up at a music store for weeks before someone finally calls. I go to the audition, and everyone in the band is a good 15 years older than me. We play, but they're upset with me because I don't know every pop metal song note-for-note. I pack my car in a torrential downpour, the weather matching my hope.

It's one of a hundred times where, frustrated by my lack of success with an instrument I dearly love, coupled with 40+ hours a week of work on top of being a full-time student, I haven't touched my instrument in weeks. That's when a friend will call me to jam, and, upon hearing how damn rusty I am, quietly remind themselves not to call me again.

It's a year before I move up to Ohio, when a "good friend" drunkenly tells me, "Mike, you really suck on guitar." I smile and laugh, trying to hide how much I believe him.

I have always loved music. I always "got" playing music on an intellectual level...I could always think music, see the layers, know what needed to happen. I never had that strong of technical skills...I was always (and remain) a sloppy player...but I had feeling. However, whenever I pick up my guitar, most of the above instances immediately leap to mind, and my confidence evaporates.

I do what I can to hide my embarrassment and insecurity...long ago, I learned of the real value of performing bravado...but it's always there. I'm not used to anyone thinking I'm good at guitar...and since guitar has always been very important to me, to who I am, this means that I've always had to fight the feeling of being a fraud and failure. And when someone complements me, I always feel uneasy, as if they're just trying to be nice.

These are my issues, though, and I will work to overcome them. For now, I just want to thank everyone who has come to see our show intently for your time and attention and tell you how much I appreciate you seeing us...particularly if my own embarrassment or bravado has hid my appreciation in any way. And I want to really thank my current awesome band for playing with me...it truly is a dream come true.

I'll continue to be mentally screwed up, though...after all, my mental state is, by now, as big of a part of me as music.

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.

drinking cures pain

I haven't even hit the ripe old age of 40 yet, but my body is falling apart. First, I have a rotator cuff injury (which comes, I suspect, from too much "rocking out"). Then I get tendinitis in my foot. And right after that starts to heal, I pull a muscle in my (until recently) uninjured shoulder. Grrr.

Naturally, there is only one thing I can do: create a mixed drink! I call this one "The Anti-inflammatory":

• Take a highball glass and add several ice cubicles.
  
• Add one shot of bourbon and one shot of triple-sec.
  
• Top off with apple juice, stir, and dream of pain-free days.
  

I must add that this is one damn delicious drink. I sometimes amaze myself with my general brilliance.

doctoral advice

Another friend of mind just (successfully) defended his dissertation today. This is a version of the advice I gave him (and to many of my friends when they become new Ph.D.s):

Congratulations, and welcome to the club! Now, there's something you absolutely have to do:

As soon as you possibly can, write some scholarship that's not dissertation-related. Do that fun article you've had to push to the bottom of the "to-do" pile. At the very least, do a book review. But get something else, something new, something non-dissertationy under your teeth, and do it quickly. Also, do some personal writing. A blog is a good idea, but a diary works as well.

The big thing that happens to a lot of Ph.D.s is that, after their defense, they want to take a break from writing. They want to just sit and not think for a while. And while I understand these impulses, they are not in your best interest. It is very easy for your "a few weeks off" from writing to turn into a few months...or (as in my case) years away from writing. And when that happens, it is very damn hard to start writing again.

My personal experience bears this out. When I finished my Ph.D. process, I was already an adjunct...meaning I worked a hell of a lot, teaching things that were not my specialty. Adjunct work is really hard, and it's nigh-impossible to do it full-time and still write. However, you still gotta try.

I had the summer off, and this also became a long break from being an academic. What I really needed, I naively figured, was to recharge my batteries. Once tanned, rested, and ready, I believed it would be easy, during adjunct year two, to bust out an article. So I did nothing over the summer. However, the second adjunct year was even more nightmarish than the first (see the earliest of my blog posts), and all I ended up writing, in those two years of adjuncting, was a single 7 page mini-article. This lack of scholarship, I feel, undoubtedly contributed to my poor performance on the job market.

But this is more than just career advice. Trust me, I understand your current position. You are undoubtedly burnt out from the dissertation process. Everyone at your stage of the process is burned out. One friend, a week away from his defense, told me, "Mike, there's no one in the world who cares about my dissertation less than I." And this is understandable. Personally, all I really cared about was plotting revenge on a few "professional academics" who seemed intent on sabotaging my career before it started.

However, you have to remember that you got into this lifestyle for a reason. There were good reasons why, way back when filling out your grad school applications, you thought of yourself as a potential academic. Reminding yourself of this is now your next task...because I have seen bad things happen to those who forgot why they became Ph.D.s. Don't be one of those people who, upon thinking of the last half-decade of your life, forgets why you did it in the first place.

Trust me, you have passed a momentous milestone, the highest academic degree in the world. You need to feel good about yourself, about your work. You deserve to realize just how excellent you are, and how awesome is your accomplishment. You also deserve to think of yourself as an academic, as a professional.

So, by all means, celebrate. Have one hell of a time. Take a few days to relax...something I know you probably haven't done in quite some time. But then, jump back into the work...because it's the only way to remind yourself that both writing and thinking are fun...are good...and, most importantly, are what you do.

my own toy story

In my heart of hearts, I've always wanted to be a writer. Yeah, I know I write now (been published, too), but that's academics. And although I am also a published poet, that's a lifestyle of which I never really aspired...too tortured. No, what I always wanted to be was a novelist.

Perhaps it goes back again to Twain. Although my parental units tell me that I liked to “read” at an early age, flipping through books as if soaking up the words via osmosis long before I actually knew how to read, the earliest books I actually remember reading were the children's adaptations/abridgments of classic novels...but I remember being so struck by A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (particularly the very gruesome scene where The Boss takes on all of England's knighthood, and soon the knight's corpses are surrounding his castle, their armor brushing against electrified fences) that I begged for the real version of the book...and I became a fan of novels.

I had some early attempts at writing a novel of my own, but they were really fragmentary and had no real concept of plot or character. The early works were horror novels in the making. Now, I'm sure that if you can get away with faceless characters and little plot anywhere, the horror genre is the place to be. However, I couldn't figure out what any of these nascent books were really about (a key factor for even a very young novelist-to-be), and they were all quickly abandoned.

I did have one fairly serious push to become a novelist in me, and that hit when I was in my early years of grad school. It would've been a good one, too. The novel concerned a (with a not too subtle autobiographical slant) a young man who couldn't grow up. This failure to mature was manifest in what I thought was a pretty interesting way. See, the protagonist still had his room festooned with many of his childhood toys and other such decorations from his past. One night, they came alive and, spurred by the efforts of two curmudgeonly gargoyle figures, started an active rebellion/open war against the protagonist.

The opening chapter, when debuted to my grad school creative writing class, got positive feedback. They thought it was lively and fun. They pointed out to me that the toys had more character than the protagonist, but that was a design feature...as the “war” between them progressed and the balance of power shifted, so would the characterization. While the protagonist started out with no character and the toys with tremendous personality, everything would reverse until, when the guy won the war, he would become fairly realized, while the toys would, in defeat, become mere toys.

Everything was going both swell and swimmingly. I busted out a few more chapters. I had real ideas on how to make the novel work. I finished writing chapter four, describing the aftermath of one toy-versus-man battle in the style of Red Dawn (particularly in the style of the Cuban general's letter to his wife) (also, Wolverines!!!!) (sorry for that). I had real hope that I'd actually finish the damn thing this time, and it would be good to boot.

Then one of my colleagues from the creative writing class asked me if I had heard of this new movie Toy Story. When they described the plot to me, my jaw dropped. Then I saw it. Granted, they were doing a very different story than I, but still, there were enough similarities between the two where everyone to whom I described my novel would ask, “have you seen Toy Story?”

So I gave up the novel. It's just as well, because even if the original Toy Story wasn't all that close in its specifics to my tale, the sequel (particularly in Jessie's flashback) came frightfully close. The rest of my academic life was also intruding, and I realized that, in between full time grad work and three different part time jobs, I just didn't have time to write anyway. And when I later found out that the movie was the product of such writers as Joss Whedon and Joel Coen, I realized that I could've never competed anyway. You see, my ego does actually know some bounds!

Flash forward to today. I've never written a complete novel to this point in my life. However, I do have yet another novel idea bouncing around my skull all summer. It would be a cool one, too, the story of an aspiring rock musician, colored with all sorts of anecdotes from my own playing experiences (and from my musician friends, who might recognize whole periods of their lives in the narrative). I could make it work. But I also have way too much academic writing left to do, and the very real timeline of this upcoming season being my last shot on the market (for at least a few years, but maybe forever) is lighting a fire under me...so this novel too goes into the ever-increasing “I don't have the time” file.

And what opens tomorrow? Toy Story 3. I guess it's time to see how much of my planned toy rebellion novel makes the screen this time.

the river rolls, rolls, rolls (final KY notes)

Cairo Cairo is a place I dearly love

Everything around me and the moon and stars above

--Lil' Son Jackson

Cairo, Kentucky is a town that's located near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Like most things related to the mighty Mississip, and even though I never actually have (until recently) stepped foot in the town, it's a name that resonates.

It is my junior year of high school, and I'm hiding in the back corner of fifth period history. The class is, of course, relatively boring. With hindsight, I realize how hard it must be to make any good sense out of “all the history of the world in the last five hundred years” in the span of a single school year. All I could tell at the time was that I was overwhelmed by nothing but bland, boring, faceless generalities. But even at the untested age of 16, I realize at some level that the specificities are where the real interesting stuff occurs...and without the quirks of history, I just can't force myself to care about the class even in the slightest.

I've long since tired of staring at my surroundings, and there are no close friends in the class to distract me. I've also long since bored of trying to perfect my hand-drawn renditions of various band logos and guitar designs...I suck at drawing anyway. As I'm sitting next to a shelf, I decide to quietly dig amongst its contents...just for something to do. The shelf is mostly filled with teaching supplies for various classes held in this room. After discounting a box of writing supplies and chalkboard erasers, I stumble upon two stashes of paperbacks, no doubt for an English class later in the day.

At the time, I didn't realize this was momentous, a sort of “monkey discovering the monolith” moment. But when I found those boxes full of copies of Animal Farm and Life on the Mississippi, something changed.

I dug Animal Farm, to be sure. Even in my inexperienced state, I was beginning to suspect (hell, I was a teenager—which meant I knew with every fiber of my being) that power and leadership were valuable commodities that should not be handed out to someone just because they desire them...which describes the point of the Orwell novel perfectly.

Life on the Mississippi, though, really captured me at a vastly deeper level. I plowed through that book at least ten times that year. The characters, the conflicts, the settings, all of them washed over me, taught a bored teenage version of me more than a droning teacher ever would. One image which always stays with me, however, is of some small village that, because of the river being the official state border, went to bed one night officially in Kentucky yet woke up the next morning as part of Missouri after the river decided to change course in the night.

I loved that book because it resonated with some of my deepest desires. I desperately wanted to escape my life of hardship and boredom, go out on the road, have a chance to not just reinvent myself, but to invent myself in the first place. I wanted to become an expert in something mysterious, I wanted to learn a new, mysterious, romantic way of life, learn it deep in my bones. I wanted to live where I had real value, and where that value had all come because I personally earned it, through hard work, perseverance, and innate ability.

In spite of these dreams, though, I stayed fairly pedestrian in my life for some time. I lived at home entirely too long after high school, took extraordinarily menial jobs, engaged in typically pedestrian irresponsible behavior, went to a community college that was in biking distance, and generally clamped down upon that fledgling Twain-inspired desire for adventure.

Flash forward to my recent Kentucky vacation. After days eating much smoked meat, drinking in lakefront bars, and holding many conversations both more profane and personal than expected, my awesome hosts offered to take us to a brewpub in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. On the way, upon hearing we would drive through the town of Cairo, Illinois, my mind immediately clicked onto Cairo's appearances in Life on the Mississippi, and I looked forward to staring at the river while reliving my memories of Twain.

Time, however, had not been kind to Cairo. What had once been a town of over 15,000 has dropped to under 4,000. What was once a fairly grand main street is now a monument of decay and abandonment, with windows boarded up, paint peeling, and (in one case) a thirty foot tree plowing through the middle of one building. Our host informed us that the citizens are quite used to us college-types slowing down to take photos of the deindustrialized, post-apocalyptic landscape. However, we were informed, we would not be leaving the car, because Cairo had become quite a center of crime.

Cape Girardeau, our ultimate destination, was a complete and utter whiplash-inducing contrast of a town. I had never heard of the town at all (not in Life on the Mississippi or otherwise), but it immediately struck me as somewhere I wanted to be. Although it boasts a university I've never heard of (who knew there even was a Southeast Missouri State University?), it had a wonderful midwest college town atmosphere, tons of good restaurants and shops, beautiful houses, wonderful views. It was a truly unexpected jewel

After our brew-pub meal, we even got a chance to wander down to the waterfront, past the flood walls, and stare at the mighty Mississip, much as I do whenever I get down to New Orleans, and it was (as always) glorious. True to form, it held all the mystery, all the nostalgia, all the Mark Twain memories I imagined as a kid, that I see every time I stare at its vast expanse and drift into my own dreams.

Because of the day's travels, however, there was an entirely new level of complexities to the river, which begged the question, How did the world fit in? Cairo, the town of which I dreamed, whose very name resonated with me on some deep, personal, and spiritual level? It was a mess, beaten up by forces beyond its control, pushed into obscurity and blight. But then there was the unknown town of Cape Girardeau, which was glorious and fun, which had been sitting there just outside of my realm of knowledge and expectations.

There were many lessons there, but as I was staring at the brown water of the Mississippi, most of them escaped me. Twain was still in my mind, but mostly as a counterpoint: how would Mr. Clemens, I wondered, respond to the dualities of current day Cairo and Cap Girardeau? What lessons of hard work, romance, and dreams would he find? How would the Mississippi of today stack up to that of his childhood?

As I gazed out at the river, I knew I couldn't answer for Mark Twain. More surprisingly, I couldn't even answer for myself. I have no idea where my expectations lie anymore, or even if I should have them in the first place.

The river was still there, though. It would always be there. It would just be me that's different, I thought, as I took one last glimpse at the water. We then left and went back to our host's house, where I prepared for the long trip home.

KY trip...days 2 & 3

So, how does one spend one's vacation? Personally, I just aim for as many ways of doing utterly nothing as possible. My life in the semester is largely governed by to-do lists, an hour daily of putting out fires, and large moments of sheer panic...so it's nice to practice the sedentary arts. Vacations allow me to be sedentary in whole new locations...so they are, in some ways, learning experiences...and not just excuses for bad behavior.

Friday started out with a nice Japanese lunch (you heard me...you always start with lunch on vacation, unless there are stray bags of junk food nearby). Pork and sushi? How can you beat it? Afterward, we found a video store that was going out of business and shopped the fairly nice collection. I ended up with some good ones, including Serenity, Adaptation, The Wrestler, and Synecdoche, NY. Unfortunately, my host beat me out to Anvil: The Story of Anvil and Heavy Metal in Baghdad, but all's fair in war and discount clearance shopping, I guess.

We then found a classic barbecue place...not a restaurant, mind you, but a stand on the side of the road inside a hastily assembled screened-in porch. We got 1 1/2 pounds of pork and a chicken for dinner later that day. They were both awesome, even though the chicken was entirely the wrong type of meat to come from a barbecue stand. We then drove through the Land Between the Lakes (and around the lakes themselves) before returning to the homestead for a laid-back evening of barbecue and the aforementioned Anvil before our gentle slumbers.

Saturday, by contrast, was more about unadulterated hedonism. Lunch was at Murray KY's own Big Apple Cafe for fish tacos and beer. The strangest part of the whole experience was seeing people actually smoke cigarettes indoors; for some refugees from a state with a fairly strict smoking ban, it was unnerving. The Romaniac is a smoker, but he said that he nevertheless felt weird about lighting up indoors...but did anyway.

Afterwards, we went back to the Land Between the Lakes area. While the various spousal units decided to sit by the lake and read, us menfolk went to a lake front marina bar called Fat Daddy's. It's a floating bar that serves Yuengling and has a bikini-clad wait staff (which, if I weren't so non-sexist, I would admit was a huge selling point). The clientèle was strange: an interesting mix of boaters, bikers, and military...no fights, though. The band was even neat--they did some cool stuff, including a blues version of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" that actually made the song palatable. Really, there were very few ways the afternoon could've been improved.

We ended up back at the host house, had some grilled food, hung out with the hosts & some of their friends, and talked about such wide-ranging topics as spicy potato chips, Romanian salt mines, how women learn about their menstrual cycle, Stephen Seagall versus Jean Claude Van Damme, feminism, ice storms, and the proper way to integrate food into all-day drinking binges.

It's been a blast so far. Really, the only thing that's been missing is a healthy serving of green vegetables.

KY trip...day one notes

Yesterday was mostly about the road...long hours driving, mostly through the middle of nowhere. We take the standard shot down 75 south through Cincinnati, turn off once in Kentucky, and then pretty much go the longest diagonal path through the state that's possible.

There were very few surprises, travel-wise. Dayton continues its trend of always having their interstate under construction (which has been going on, via personal knowledge, since 1998). There was, shocker, road construction outside of Cincinnati (which distracted me from giving Touchdown Jesus his full amount of deserved attention). There was a surprising amount of cars in Louisville for 3:30. There was pretty much nothing going on between Louisville and our destination.

So we amused ourselves. The spousal unit, after decades of being contractually obligated to me, does this as a matter of course...so we consigned her to the back seat, where she could read, sleep, and ignore us to her heart's content while riding in plush comfort.

The Romaniac and I talked about a suitably strange variety of things. Included on the topic list was why MTV's programming was destined to quit playing music based on advertiser concerns, the politics of pay-per-view wrestling broadcasts, how the Romanian style of pizza (with your choice of sauces poured on top) leads--or at least lends itself--to outrageous levels of drinking, how my random play on my mp3 player continually frightened me or induced musical whiplash, contests of will with Moldovans, and how we could make academic rejection notices more brutal than they are already ("We thank you for your application, which caused three committee members to weep in pain and another, despondent over the future of his profession, to attempt hanging himself with his doctoral hood").

We eventually got to our destination, and while friends make a great ending point for a long drive, friends bearing the fruit of a kegerator make an even better one. From there on out, it was a quiet evening of beer, a magnificent pasta salad, beer, cigars, and beer.

More soon, assuming I can remember what happens next.

KY trip...overview

When I got my full-time position, I swore I would occasionally treat myself. The most overt self-treat was buying a really large gas grill, and this is one that has paid off deliciously. However, I also decided that I would occasionally do something for which all academics dream...take a vacation that was (gasp, shock) not connected whatsoever to an academic conference!

Yes, I admit this is a true luxury, one that mkes me feel like a thousand-aire. However, I'm still pretty much in debt, so we get to do this on the cheap...which means staying with friends who've escaped their grad school towns. This is, truth be told, the main reason why I want friends to get exciting jobs...more exciting vacation hotspots from which to chose!

This year's vacation was to visit a friend who got a job in the far end of Kentucky. Joining me and my lovely spousal unit is the Romaniac. On schedule is barbecue, gentle socializing, partaking from our host's kegerator, and plenty of resulting bad behavior.

We are, after all, a simple people.

pre-vacation drinking

Shortly after packing for the brief summer visitation, I created another drink! I call this one "The Kentucky Apple":

• ice up a high-ball glass
  
• pour in one measure of rum
  
• top off with Jones Green Apple soda
  
• mix
  
• splash in some wild strawberry liquor
  
• enjoy while waiting for your spousal unit to pack
  

Actually, I think that the Jones Soda might very well be the key to mixed drink nirvana.

turn, turn, turn

So, is it summer? it depends on what indices one uses.

The weather outside would suggest "no"--49 degrees is not exactly "pack up the wagon for a trip to the beach" weather. The coolness also means that it's not summer clothing weather...because There Will Be Jackets for a little while. And the calendar backs all this up, as it has summer officially starting on June 21...a long ways away.

However, my life (at least the internal chronometer section) revolves around school, and if the Spring semester is officially kaput (and grades are in, online course presence is shut down, stragglers are dealt with, and my office is abandoned), then it's summer in the only way that really matters to me.

However, it didn't really feel like summer until this morning. That's because I was able to start reading theory for the first time since...well, last summer, I suppose. I'm reading a pretty heavily theoretical text to boot. And now, I know it's summer deep in the fibers of my existence...because my mind is starting to click, abandoned synapses are once again firing, and once again, I'm feeling engaged to something other than extinguishing student fires. There's a part of me that's also kind of scared and wondering if I still have what it takes, but that's what my summer is: a combination of intellectual curiosity, mental engagement, and slight mental paranoia.

Beats a sunburn any day.

Rosanna Rosannadanna would be proud

There are certain days where events snowball into cataclysmic episodes of suckitude.

I woke up with a moderate to-do list, but I still expected to get all my chores done in time to do a bit of reading...I have a friend who's been bugging me about feedback on his dissertation. I checked the e-mail, ate my yogurt, and decided to make a cup of coffee before I delved into the salt mines. Of course, this was issue one, as it took me about 15 minutes to find my French press...and panic/anxiety is not really what you need if you're trying to start the day off on a positive note.

The house cleaning was uneventful, and I finished right at lunchtime. I was looking forward to a nice serving of red beans and rice. However, I miscalculated my food supply, because there were no more leftovers in the fridge. Mild disappointment (red beans and rice is my favorite dish), but I popped a few pounds of popcorn instead.

While I was eating, the UPS guy dropped off my latest guitar gadget purchase, which included a neat little practice amp...which would've been cool, except for the fact it was broken directly out of the box.

After lunch, I decided to assemble our new Ikea shelf. Now, I like the concept of cheap furniture, and Scandinavian design always sounds just a little dirty to me. However, in practice, "furniture in a box" really only serves to tick me off. I get angry, frustrated, and feel like less of a man. Assembling my own furniture without fail precipitates a chain of annoyances and disasters. I also lose faith in there being anything other than a vengeful, prankster deity who's more than a bit of a vindictive jerk.

I found out immediately that the shelving unit had no feet...so the rough-cut wooden boards that made the four side rails had to just sit directly on the floor. Of course, this means a trip to Home Depot, a place which makes me suspect Dante got some of the details wrong in Inferno. After wandering around the cavernous building and purchasing supplies, I get halfway home before I realize that I only bought four rubber feet when I need eight...so I turn around in a parking lot and return to the home improvement hell store.

I get back home and start in on the assembly. Everything's pre-drilled, and I have good Ikea directions, so this will be a breeze, right? Well, no. Within a few minutes, I split one of the shelf supports right down the damn middle.

After much chest-thumping, wailing, and cursing, I eventually patch the board with a carriage bolt and nut, and, two splinters later, I finish assembly...only to find out that Ikea, the Swedish bastards, only include half of the wall-mount hardware. Cue Home Depot trip three.

I finally get the damn shelving unit installed and start on the next chore: cooking for the week. Because spousal unit and I are hardly ever at home together, Monday has become "let's bust out lotsa meals for the week's lunches and dinners" day. I butcher a chicken, separate the leg quarters, and place them on the broiler tray for roasting (later to be used in salads). I then go into a cabinet to grab the salt, but a caper bottle falls out. I try to juggle the bottle and do save it, but the glass kosher salt container falls out, lands on top of a glass measuring pitcher, shatters both vessels, and spreads salt everywhere, all over my freshly cleaned kitchen.

I curse poetically and with verve before cleaning up. I then rinse off the salt-encrusted leg quarters, dry them, and throw them into the oven to cook. I also throw a head and a half of garlic in foil, drizzle on a bit of olive oil, seal up the pouch, and then throw it in the oven, alongside the roasting legs and thighs. I then cube the chicken breast meat and prep veggies for a stir fry. Just as I finish my stir-fry prep, my roasted garlic (destined for pasta-land) is ready, and, wouldn't you know, when I go to pull it, I burn myself on the oven door.

Luckily the rest of the day was relatively free of disaster...because one more thing, and I would probably have to curl into a fetal position and whimper.

dining euphoria

I am married to a wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous person who is the sweetest individual in existence. She does, however, have two very serious flaws. First off, she seems to love me a whole bunch...which is nice and makes me reguarly do a happy dance However, as much as I enjoy her love, it does demonstrate her extremely questionable taste and general low standards.

Secondly, my spousal unit does not really like meat. Oh, she likes dishes which have meat in them, and she does make a really mean meatloaf (something I, for some odd reason, simply can never pull off). When it comes to whole hunks o' animal, though, she's not really a fan.

This means that there are many beast-related meals which I dearly love yet cannot have. At the top of the list, though, is steak. Oh, she'll eat part of one from time to time, but she prefers her steak cooked about 25 minutes past well...and at that level of doneness, what, really, is the point? Other than fixing shoes or patching roofs, that is.

I can generally handle the steak void in my life with relatively good humor. I wouldn't be eating it all that regularly in the first place...after all, I'm not exactly in the steak tax bracket. But every so often, darling spousal unit leaves me at home alone (generally on parental unit visitations), and I can indulge my inner carnivore by eating a piece of cow that's the size of my head.

Today was one of those glorious steak days. I went to the grocery store to pick up my steak (and quite a number of other items, but the steak is most important). I was gonna do my usual top sirloin, but they were the exact same price as porterhouse...which makes utterly no sense to me, but I'm not complaining. I found a nice, evenly cut porterhouse...it was not quite the size of my head, but I soldiered on...I gotta watch my girlish figure, you know.

I cooked the steak simply...salt and peppered, in a NASA-hot cast iron skillet, to a nice medium rare. While the steak rested , I made a pan sauce with stock and red wine, which I finished by mounting some butter. I diced some potatoes, tossed in a few garlic cloves, boiled in salted water, drained, added some cheddar, leftover Stilton, a splash of milk, and a bit of butter before mashing. I diced some zucchini, tossed it in some flour and breadcrumbs, and fried it in some olive oil.

It was, of course, glorious. I love me some steak, and I love cooking my own. Not only do I get to control the doneness, I also get to control the eating environment. After all, if you're at a fancy restaurant, you generally cannot get away with gnawing on bones.

road tunes

Back when I was a high school laddie, a friend of mine's dad was what you would call a bluegrass aficionado. Not only did he listen to lots of bluegrass, travel to bluegrass festivals, and own an awe-inspiring instrument collection (including seven or eight top-of-the-line Martin guitars, which you'd often find just leaned against the couch), he also declared every Wednesday night to be Bluegrass Night. I can close my eyes and see him now. He'd put on his pink blazer, break out his best mandolin, mix a Seagram's and water, and open up his house to anyone who played bluegrass. Players from all over Jacksonville would come to hang out, have a few beverages, and play bluegrass classics until the late hours.

I went on a fairly regular basis. While I initially went to hang out with my high school friends, I eventually learned to appreciate (and even got to play) the music...an unexpected development. Even now, there are still the occasional random melodies and lyric fragments which unexpectedly pop into my head.

But another part of the adventure was getting to know a wide variety of people from circles I wouldn't ordinarily enter. While time has eroded many of them from my memory (the banjoist, who was just blistering, is an exception), I remember one fun-loving guy in particular who always tried to crack us up. One time, upon hearing me moan about my long drive to work, this gentleman told me that he drove an hour each way to his job, but it his favorite part of his day...a time where he could be alone with his thoughts, with no demands on him, and it was the only time where he could play whatever he wanted on his radio without having to consider anyone else's preferences. At the time, I thought he was nuts, but that was probably because I was struggling to keep my 1973 Plymouth Valiant's monstrous gas tank full. 13 MPG is, after all, not exactly easy on the high school income.

Much has changed for me in the over 20 years. Instead of standing on a porch and trying to talk over the sound of G chords and pick noise, I'm waiting in my office for my last class of the semester and avoiding the inevitable end-of-the-term grading load. While there's a part of me that's gearing up for the zombie grading sessions, and another part of me is contemplating my stupidly optimistic summer research agenda, I also realized that today will be the last day for a while where I can pick a cd and blast it on the ride home. I will legitimately miss the ride.

If the interwub is to be trusted, the Wednesday bluegrass jams still go on. Right now, I kinda wish I was living in Jacksonville so I stop by. It would be fun to hear the music, but there's a bigger draw. Now that I'm more mature, who knows what further wisdom I might encounter?

desperate times call for a desperate drink...

...and I call this one the "Final Exam":

• throw a bottle o' vodka and a martini glass into the freezer and wait a while
  
• after doing some grading and hating mankind, fill a shaker with ice
  
• add
  
  
  
  • 1/2 measure of triple sec
    
  • 1/2 measure of peppermint schnapps
    
  • 2 measures of the icy vodka
    
  
  
• shake the mixture while trying to look cool
  
• take the martini class out of the freezer and add two twists
  
• pour the drink into the glass
  
• enjoy while plotting the downfall of undergrads
  

one of my turns

I am currently (for reasons I don't really wanna get into here) in a funk. I spent most of yesterday in a rotten mood...and by rotten, I mean the "I hate everyone of you idiots"/thunderclouds/looks of pure evil/decaying flesh moods. I wanted to hurt every single person, animal, mineral, and vegetable on this and on one other planet.

Ultimately, I realized I needed to get out of said mood. In fact, I spent a lot of the day contemplating various mood elevators. However, each unfortunately possessed a fatal flaw.

I wanted to punch somebody or something. However, I'm currently having arm issues (which I initially suspected were pulled muscles, but the three week duration suggests otherwise). Hurting myself more, when I already feel 183 years old and am contemplating walkers, would not, I suspect, ultimately make me any happier.

I then wanted to play something horrifically heavy on guitar. However, our band's material is really not violent enough save one song, and that one doesn't even have a guitar solo...which would limit the amount of ear drum damage I could achieve. I did try and play some Rage Against the Machine during practice, but while one band member played along, the other members just exchanged the seemingly omnipresent "here Mike goes again" look amongst themselves.

If I couldn't perform violence (or the representation thereof) myself, I wanted to at least see some violence...and lo and behold, there was in fact a wrestling pay-per-view. However, I only know one person who would conceivably go with me, and he wanted to stay in. I should've hunted him down and performed a pile-driver...but I like him in spite of his wimpiness in this particular matter...and furthermore, see the above "hurt" point about self-inflicting injury.

I wanted to drink. And by drink, I meant epic drinking bout. However, I had to be up stupidly early today, so my body wasn't really ready for the inevitable hangover compounding my already inevitable sleep deprivation. Also, I would've had to drink alone, and that tends to elevate rather than alleviate my moods. Hey, my life ain't Barfly

So hear this, every single person in the world: you better be glad I have a lovely spousal unit who makes me feel fuzzy and temperate...because if not for her, you would have had to deal with yesterday's mood compounded for 24 more hours. Trust me: that would not have been pretty.

I was so much older then...

Summers are (as you, oh faithful readers, know by now) my work period. Part of my mental preparation for this work period is to slowly get myself acclimated to the sound of partying and volleyball-playing undergrads frolicking in the frat-boy-hell apartment complex across the street while I'm in my office, chained to various pieces of scholarship-in-progress. Sometimes, it takes all my inner fortitude to not run out and join them. Then I (1) remember how I feel about the average fratboy dude/bro that lives at said complex, as well as (2) remember they likely consider me to be around 187 years old.

The secret is, I have found, to expose one's self in increasing doses to younger people having fun when you are in fact working on something. If one is careful to build up one's tolerance, eventually, the fun-receptors in one's brain can be completely disabled. Yes, it's a type of self-flagellation, but it keeps the working part of my brain somewhat focused.

I started this training regimen today by going to and fro the library by walking across the green on campus instead of taking the (more direct) back way. This way, I would pass a multitude of people both younger and more beautiful than I (which is, admittedly, not all that difficult). Furthermore, since a certain percentage of said good looking kids would inevitably be sunbathing, playing frisbee, or just plain goofing off, it would adequately crush my own internal fun circuit.

It worked kinda sorta, but not as well as I would like. Sure, it reminded me that there are people who have the time to goof off. Yes, it reminded me that the world is full of people considerably more attractive than I. However, it did not make me feel as old and decrepit as it usually would.

Why not? I blame a colleague, who earlier commented "you're a young guy...what are you, 30?"

This shook me. I don't think said colleague was trying to be nice...because it's me, after all, and people just don't ever try to raise my spirit. Did she seriously think I was that young?

Now I'm sitting in my office, but I am mentally torn. Am I ancient or no? Should I sit here and start work on an academic manifesto? Or should I go play beer pong with Natty Light?

riding the writing cycle

Each school year follows a predictable pattern. No, I'm not talking about the prep, making syllabi, and tracing my students on the path from sheet utter panic to comprehension. I'm talking about my own journey as a writer.

The summer is my major productive time, where I write and write and write. Basically, I try to break it up with exercise, glasses of iced tea, and such, but most every summer day is spent either on the couch reading theory or chained to the desk, writing on the computer. I have lofty goals in the summer, ones that require "total dedication."

Of course, although I get an awful lot done (one of my bosses tells me I'm producing tenure-track workload even I'm in a heavy teaching job), I never really come close to completing my "vacation" writing agenda. When the Fall starts, I tell myself that it will be different this semester...I'll find a way to both write and teach. As is, I did pretty good this past fall by getting a brief revision and resubmit out and one conference presentation, but that's it. I never even got that conference presentation written up in draft.

The Christmas break will, I always swear, be the time where I get an article out--this year, it was going to be the Fall conference paper. Unfortunately (for my productivity, that is), there are always visitations, family gatherings, parties, and similar distractions. I always enjoy myself immensely, but again, I never get any writing done.

I tell myself, "well, at least I have Spring semester to write"...but by this point do I really need to go into detail on this semester's work failure?

I'm thinking about these cycles, because although I am still several weeks away from the start of summer, I am at what is most accurately the starting point of my scholarly side. I am at that magical dead space in the semester where the students are buried in their own work and don't really need much hand-holding on my part. I have very few classes left to plan, and I am between conference weeks. This means I have a certain amount of time on my hand, and Summer is on the horizon, I can actually start working without worrying too much about losing momentum in the forthcoming grading/conference period.

There's only one problem: by this point in the year, it's been entirely too long since I ever had to think about anything at all. I know I have mental chops, but it's been way too long since any of them were flexed. My major goal now is to try and get my brain primed and ready to go...so that when the summer finally hits, I can dive into my scholarship.

And I do have a ton of it on the summer "to-do" list...my CSI article, starting a journal with friends, finishing my revision attempt on the music article, the theory-heavy Neuromancer article, and (tee hee) getting a draft of the book done (the latter of these will almost certainly never leave the "dreaming" stage). On top of that, I have a brief smattering of an idea for a paper on the Robert B. Parker Spenser series...as if I need any more work.

I'm starting the brain recharging by reading Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. If you've only seen the awesomely fun film adaptation, you should know they are nothing like the same story. Heinlein's version is much more proto-fascist "go military" (although a much-smarter-than-I friend has already engaged me on my reductive descriptions), as opposed to the anti-hierarchy film. Honestly, even though I'm an ex-military brat, my sympathies are with the movie, but the film is more of a think-piece...and I think maybe it's the perfect way to ease me back into mental operations.

With the stupidly heavy workload in my on-deck circle, you would think that I would be in panic mode, but it's not really the case. Instead, I feel like I'm coming back to where I belong. I do love teaching, and I find it ultimately enriching, but the research, the writing, the scholarship, that's what really what drew me to this life in the first place...and that's nice to remember.

I have never come anywhere near where I want to be professionally, but I know I am far from alone in this. I don't know if the writing will help me in my career or not. The one thing I do know? Writers write. I might be stuck teaching "welcome to college" classes in a field far from my own, and I might be doing this forever. Doesn't matter, though. My writing is my true work, and I think it's important to realize that it's valuable in its own right.

I could get depressed by my age. I could get depressed by the fact that I rely on hand-me-down cars from my parents. I could get depressed by having to rent a house in the student ghetto because I can't get out of credit card debt. I could get depressed by the very real possibility that most of my friends will be gone in four months, and most likely not even to better places and situations, because damnit, I want all my friends to get great jobs in vacation-settings, so I have places to visit.

I don't know if doing the work will solve anything. I have no idea if it will ever get recognized. Ultimately, I don't even know if the work has value. But I suspect. I believe.

It might be a cliche to say "the work will set me free"...but I'm okay with cliches...at least at this stage of the writing cycle.

show number four

I've long since realized that I have the tendency to complain and moan. I'm sure this comes as a shock to many, but I also have a love of hyperbole and exaggeration. There's always a certain desire to embellish the truth to make my life seem more impressive than it is in reality. I swear, however, that I'm not doing that when I tell you that, upon loading in my equipment for last night's show, I immediately thought of Silence of the Lambs.

"It puts the lotion in the basket. It puts the lotion in the basket!!!!"

Ahem. Sorry about that.

The show was at an area anarchist bookstore/community center/performance space, and we were scheduled to play with one other local band and two touring acts (one of them from Mexico, no less). And while there is much to say about the evening, I am still trying to encapsulate my experience. My thoughts are, as they say, a work in progress.

First things first. I am not an anarchist. While my understanding of the philosophy is better than the reductive stereotypes which my students hold (and that I used to have myself), I admittedly only have a rudimentary understanding of anarchism and know few of its intricacies. I have sympathies with the suspicion of hierarchy in particular, but I hold my own suspicions of their proposed solutions. I am trying to learn more, and not just because of my anarchist friends...I do have a legitimate intellectual curiosity on the subject. But I'm not there yet, so playing a show at an anarchist center inevitably involved coming to terms with my limited knowledge and some preconceptions to boot.

Nevertheless, the idea of an anarchist community center/concert venue/infoshop is one with which I certainly sympathize. Non-traditional music venues are essential for growing musicians, particularly those who are underage and cannot play in bars. That such a place as an infoshop exists for any philosophy is great, and the communal spirit is undeniable, particularly in terms of community outreach. So it was with a limited knowledge and a selective sympathy that I drove to Monday's show.

At first, I have to admit that I was a little freaked out. My spousal unit got there before I. When, having problems locating the place, she called me, she described the area as generally scary. I eventually found the place, ran into my bandmates, and started the equipment load-in through the center's dark garage/warehouse. This involved passing much salvaged...um, stuff/appliances/crap, walking on a wooden plank suspended over a puddle that verged on underground lake territory, going down the "staircase of death," and entering a large basement space utterly covered with graffiti. This is when the Silence of the Lambs references started echoing in my head.

We went into the bookstore area to wait for the show to start, and my expectations took a little swerve. I expected to see a relatively easy-going space furnished with nice salvaged furniture and shelves upon shelves of zines...and I did find exactly that. What I was not expecting, however, is the Friends board game...it's just not the stereotypical choice of either anarchists or Silence of the Lambs characters.

So, after a certain amount of milling about, we grabbed a table. Eventually, we found out that a local band had been added to the bill, and they were running a little late. Ultimately, I found out that this was reason one why I could never be an anarchist. Most of the people associated with this evening, it was explained to me, were "lifestyle anarchists," which (as it was explained) means "they believe you have autonomy and are free to decide to do whatever we want to"...thus the very idea of a schedule is not really within the realm of discussion.

Now, as much as I would like to be fairly free and loose with my time, I simply cannot be that relaxed. For one, I used to work at restaurants, where everything was timed (length of shift, of service, of cooking for each item, for performing every task, and so forth). Second, my years of grad school and later adjuncting means that I am used to having 3,652,809 thing going on at once, so prioritization and scheduling are not just options...they are ingrained necessities. So the wait was killing me. I assume Buffalo Bill could relate.

Anyway, after a few hours, my drummer told me that if nothing was happening in about a half hour, we would just go downstairs and start playing. However, the local band showed up and started setting up, so we wandered downstairs. This is when I fully was able to comprehend our performance space. Yes, it was low-ceiling, and yes, the stage was only two inches tall, but the graffiti was the most memorable element. Some tags were fairly dull (band names and such), some were quite expected (the anarchy symbol, of course), some were interesting (the one asking me to perform a sexual act on "gender binaries"), and some were just plain puzzling (the sprayed image of a fetus with the legend "abortions send babies to god faster").

The first band started playing pretty late and did a five or six song set. I suppose they were pretty good at what they do, but their music was a cross between 80s new wave and emo, and those are two genres which I simply cannot get into. My main impression, though, was of how young everyone was. I'm sure I was twice as old as 85% of the audience.

After the first band finished, we were able to set up fairly quickly and issue-free. Most people came back down when we started playing, but I noticed a number of them filtering upstairs as our set went on. By the end of it, there were about six people left in spite of us (I would humbly like to suggest) pretty well and mistake-free. The remaining "crowd" was admittedly appreciative (one of them thanked us), but I can't help wish we could quantify how quickly we cleared the room. While we were hauling our stuff back up the stairs of death, our singer and I were complemented by the singer from band one, who particularly liked our last song...the only thing is, I don't remember him still being in the audience when we finished.

While we were packing, my bassist told me she thought it was because we were too loud for everyone to stay. Now, it is true that we are a pretty loud band--we do have a drummer who plays as if he's punishing his instrument, and the rest of us have no real choice but to keep up. We were honestly trying to be relatively tame volume-wise, however. Said drummer was even using his "quiet" sticks. True, he still broke them, but we were trying.

My theory, however, is different. I took last night as a lesson on how well Analog Revolution goes over with "the kids." This is a shame, really, because it means that while we might sell some shirts, our posters will apparently never be over the beds of young girls nation-wide.

In light of this revelation, I guess I will have to adjust my lifelong goals and dreams...somehow. Well, at least I never had to put the lotion in the basket.

show number three

Last night was the second of three shows in this ten day period. I was expecting a certain amount of wear or panic. I was also hoping that someone in the audience would flash the band. Fortunately and unfortunately respectively, I was wrong.

We were able to set up at a more leisurely pace, and it really helped having played on the stage last week...we knew how to better maximize a very small space. There were still electrical issues (albeit not at the Spinal Tap level of last week), and we couldn't hear each other as well as I would've liked, but in spite of that, we had a good night and barely screwed up in noticeable ways. And our new cover (a rockin' version of "Maggie May") went over pretty well.

For playing the same place two Fridays in a row, we had a pretty good crowd...especially considering that lots of our academic colleagues were either at a conference or at someone's party. But it was a pretty full room. We even had someone wearing some of our merchandise...and a non-band member's partner even!...although nobody modeled any of our band thongs. Maybe next time.

The other performers were all awesome, so as well as playing, we got to hear some great music. Afterwards, I stayed talking to friends until we were told (in a gentle manner, though) that we had to leave. All in all, there are worse ways to spend a Friday night.

show number two

My band had its second show on Friday. There's lots to tell, but some of it I don't really remember all that clearly (I was sober, but I tend to be in a little bit of a stupor after I play). For me, however, there are a few elements of note:

First, I found out that unless I stood in a particular place on stage with my guitar at a 30 degree angle to the crowd, I got a nice buzz of static and miscellaneous noise. This meant that I could not channel the spirit of Angus Young, but the stage was too small for that anyway. Moreover, it marks my absolute first Spinal Tap moment.

Also, I found that I absolutely have to put aside some time to mentally come down after the performance. As is, I went home, toweled off, then lay stone awake in bed for an hour and a half because my own band's songs wouldn't leave my head. I guess this is why so many performing musicians keep the same hours as vampires.

lessons from the world of work

For the two or three people in the world who haven't heard this story from my past:

I had just left Little Caesars in a confused state, because I was recovering from a car accident when I was fired. However, nobody could agree on who fired me, or why. Eventually, though, I learned that my manager at the time wanted to promote her cousin but had to get rid of someone first...and that someone was me. She never admitted this, however.

It was a period where there was a really horrible economy, and jobs (especially ones that would work around my college schedule) were scarce. Anyway, I swore that I would never go back to food service after this. I was tired of working stupidly long hours, smelling of food, and being the only person I knew who did not have weekends free. There were very few options, so I innocently applied at a temporary service agency.

For the next few months, I would get random phone calls sending me to a different place about twice a week. The first job they sent me to was at the Revlon plant. I was working on an assembly line. My job was to take a pre-cut sheet of cardboard, fold it into a box, and hand it to the next person...for eight solid hours. Gee, it was exciting.

Most of the time, it was warehouse work...moving boxes, cleaning up, that sort of stuff. I did work at a plastics shop recycling waste material by throwing their scraps into an industrial mulcher. I worked at a meat packing plant with a few other temps, most of whom were fresh out of Navy stints; our job was taking old inventory out of the freezer, painting over the 3+ year old expiration date, and moving the boxes onto a truck bound for a homeless shelter.

One day, I got a call sending me to a dairy packaging plant. I showed up in jeans and tee-shirt. My boss (for the day) looked at me.

"Didn't they tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"You're working in the cooler today."

Naturally, I had no jacket...it was June in Florida, after all. They found a windbreaker for me, and I worked until I lost feeling in my limbs, wandered around outside until I regained feeling, then went back into the cooler.

Obviously, this level of work impressed them in some way, because they invited me back the next day. I pulled up to the plant with jacket in tow, but this day, my boss informed me, I wouldn't be working in the cooler. Instead, I:

• swept the place
  
• moved some boxes
  
• swept the place
  
• mowed some grass out front
  
• swept the place
  
• moved some more boxes
  
• swept the place yet again
  

After the final sweeping, I asked my boss what he wanted me to do next. He showed me the rat traps which they placed around the perimeter of the yard. I was given a bag for any decaying bodies I might find. I was given a box of poison in case the little buggers just grabbed the bait and split. I then made my biggest mistake of the day when I asked, smirking slightly, what I did if there were any live rats in the traps.

The boss, however, thought I was asking a serious question and, without changing expression, reached into a closet and pulled out a broom handle with a nail on the end. Apparently, my job also entailed braining wild rodents. But lest you think this was the worst part of the experience, it was not.

Naturally, I performed my task with the zeal exhibited by any temp...I wandered around outside pointlessly, smoked five cigarettes, and came back in claiming to have found no evidence of rats at all. The boss then told me I had to go in the break room, take a fifteen minute break, and then go home. When I asked if I could just go home and skip the break, the boss yelled at me.

So I went to the break room, where the true horror of the day lay in wait. I sat down next to another temp (we had mowed grass earlier), and we talked a bit. This guy was really, really excited, because they had already asked him back for the next day...which would make four days in a row...which, in his logic, meant he was very close to being offered a full-time job.

This was the worst part of the day. This guy, seemingly intelligent, was thrilled beyond measure that he might get a full-time job where one of the duties was to brain rats with a nail on the end of a broomstick.

Soon after, I said "the hell with it" and went back to work in the food service industry, where I would stay for several more years...through Master's school, in fact. I am eternally grateful for the temp work, however, especially the dairy job. As well as providing me with plenty of exciting repartee for cocktail parties, future book jackets, and such, it taught me an infinitely valuable lesson.

What was that lesson, you might ask? I truly learned exactly how bad things can get.

on the still-practicing musicians of my youth

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

My band (see the links on the right) is playing a show tonight, so I thought that it would be a good idea to break off my work a little early and mentally decompress. So I retreated to the couch, grabbed the remote, and perused the offerings. That's when I saw it: a broadcast of an Iron Maiden show. This will be fun...right?

Iron Maiden actually holds a pretty notable place in my heart. When many of my high school heavy metal comrades were listening to hair-oriented music, I tended to focus on AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and a decent slew of British metal...Maiden chief amongst them. Iron Maiden was my second concert, and they were awesome. Watching this recording would, I believed, be a fun little way to relax and get into a "rock and roll" mood (whatever that means).

When I turned it on, I noted that Steve Harris (the bassist) still looked about 22...and that really depressed me at first, because I know I haven't fared quite as well in the looks department. He's a rock star AND still looks good? Ick.

But the music was okay...they were playing "The Trooper," after all. And while I normally don't go for oldies acts, it was fine as background noise

Then they started playing some new song called (wait for it) "Dance of Death." It started with some voice-over narration before going into a 12-year-old's stereotype of "classical" music. When singer Bruce Dickinson started singing, I noted that he was wearing some really ridiculous mask and cape...he looked like a 70s Peter Gabriel imitator who really wasn't trying all that hard.

And the song sucked. It was dull, by-the-numbers "I'm trying to be dramatic" music. Lyrically, it sounded like bad dinner theater. And it got me thinking...while I really disdain oldies/nostalgia acts, there is a pretty obvious reason some of them quit writing new music. At this stage, the video wasn't causing me to relax...it was only causing me to wish for a mandatory rock and roll retirement age.

Good Lord, now the singer's wearing a World War 2 helmet and trench coat. Disconnect!

ways to occupy a sick mind

If I were a superstitious man, I would look upon it all as an extremely bad sign. Spring Break started out mildly enough before moving into a period of the standard workload panic. Then, however, the illness set in.

It started out with only a little sinus drainage leading to a moderately-tingling-to-slightly-sore throat, but that didn't stop me from enjoying my day trips. Then the sore throat ramped itself up to a step above annoying. Then my head turned into pudding, which made Friday's band practice real fun. By the time I got home Friday night, I was spent, except for maybe trying to figure out revenge plans for the person who infected me.

Instead of hanging with friends, making grand strides on my research agenda, perfecting my guitar playing, or even getting ahead on lesson planning, I instead got to finish Spring Break in a state of pure sickness. Productivity, socializing, creativity, all that went out the window. I became a cliche of sorts, swigging dayquil as a wino would attack a fresh bottle of Ripple, curling on the couch under my blankie, vacantly gaping at the television, and generally taking moaning to an Olympic level. Luckily, my darling spousal unit was as kind as usual--if I would've had to put up with a sick me, I would've slapped myself after five minutes--but then again, as anyone whose met her will tell, my spousal unit is infinitely tougher than I.

About the best thing that can be said about the weekend is that I got to really explore some of the crannies of my burned dvd collection. Several Woody Allen films? Check. Indoctrinate spousal unit into the cult of Raging Bull? Check. Watch a seemingly never-ending parade of 50s-60s monster movies while serially tweeting? Oh, you better believe it.

The good thing is that I did learn a heck of a lot from monster movies. For instance, I realized that radioactive slugs from the Salton Sea can kill everyone in the world, as can ants from New Mexico and dinosaurs from the arctic circle. I learned that animals infected and mutated by radiation never seem to be the cute ones. I learned that the general public will inevitably wait until the monster hits their immediate vicinity before beginning to scream and run in panic. I learned that the proper response to anyone suffering a state of crisis is to offer them a cigarette. I learned that wherever there are two scientists, one of them will be an old man, while the other one will be a tremendously hot female. Finally, I learned that Them! is infinitely better than most of its competition.

Of course, none of this is knowledge which I will never really have an opportunity to apply...which, now that I think about it, is probably a metaphor for my life in some way.

to do blues

This week is my spring break. No, there's no hotel room full of drunken frat boys, Girls Gone Wild-esque behavior, or kegs of cheap, crappy beer...thank goodness. I'm an academic, and this means that I really don't get vacations. Instead, I just have moments where I deal with students a little less than normal. This does occasionally fill me with delirious joy for inexplicable reasons, though.

This does not mean, however, that there is no "me" time. I celebrated the midpoint of the semester by taking two whole days to not do work. I did pretty much nothing on Monday & took a day trip to Ann Arbor with my lovely spousal unit and two friends yesterday. Wild hedonism, I know, but in my defense, I did get some raw milk blue cheese. That has to make me a party animal of some variety.

Sadly, however, I've spent the last hour populating my "to-do" list (now kept online on the awesome TeuxDeux), and the list of upcoming duties and tasks is overflowing and, in the process, humbling. A small part of me wants to weep and rend something or anther asunder, particularly when I bet my students are sleeping in late or watching CourtTV or something.

Yet another instance, I suspect, of an "if you really think about this or wonder where is the justice, it will only drive you crazy."

Analog Revolution

Yesterday, while my mind and body was still feeling more than a little like cotton, I stumbled into my office, an awaiting student on my heels. I apologized for being a bit late, I said, but I had a late night.

"Concert?" said student suggested.

"No, my band played a show."

"That's what I meant."

I didn't really think to apply the term "concert" until then, but I guess it fits. It's a strange turn of events, though, for someone who publicly thought 12 years ago that I would never be a real musician.

For those of you who (somehow) do not know, I am playing in a band called Analog Revolution (follow us on MySpace, become a fan on Facebook, follow our Twitter feed, buy our merchandise, website coming soon, end of plugs). We mysteriously formed while watching another band, have been practicing for several months, and have 8 or 9 original songs down pat.

Wednesday was our first gig as a band. For me, it was my first gig ever.

My singer and bass player both were visibly nervous as hell. Our singer went as far as worrying that she might throw up before we went on. I, on the other hand, tried to calm them down. After all, I said, we're professionals. We really know our material. We're good. We have the songs. We're rock stars, damnit, I'd exclaim, pounding my fist down on something hard for emphasis...yet said singer somehow didn't seem impressed.

Personally, though, I did spend the entire day trying to clamp down on my nerves...which (I can admit after the fact) were considerable. My stomach felt weird all day, and I was worried stiff I would forget my part on one our songs...a newer one which I start, no less. And what (something in the back of my mind insinuated) happens if our friends, who we've been cajoling for weeks to attend, don't like us? Will they keep in contact, will we be ostracized, or will we hear the infinitely more unbearable "well, um...it looks like you had fun?"

As it turned out, there were about a hundred people in the room when we went on. I would love to say our set went flawlessly, but I did screw up our cover, and our drummer did break a cymbal stand. Didn't really seem to matter, though, because for the most part, we were on. We sounded good, hitting that mysterious zone between loose attitude and tight playing. I didn't even stumble in any of my solos! And the rest of the band was awesome...better than I realized from practice, and very engaging on stage.

Better yet, people seemed to like our songs! Not only was the crowd large, they were very appreciative, with applause, catcalls, and even (somehow) dancing. While I had lots of wonderful friends in the audience, and they all did complement me, I also received a handful of "nice show"s and "you sounded great"s from total strangers...which makes me feel that we must've been pretty good after all. There were a few guys standing by the side of the stage when we were playing, and I heard one of them say "it's just really good hard rock and roll." This made me maniacally giggle.

It was a great night of rock and roll...both of the other bands were great...but the highlight was hanging out with my bandmates and friends, talking, drinking our "victory!" Bushmills, and closing down the bar. There's lots from that night I will never forget, but sitting around a table with my drummer, singer, bassist, and several friends, realizing we did good...it's now burned into my memory forever.

I'm obviously relieved as hell, but I'm wondering when I'm going to come down from the slight adrenaline high I'm currently experiencing. It's a feeling that was entirely too long in coming. I probably won't recover for a while, though, as we currently have four more shows scheduled...one of which we booked even before breaking down our equipment!

One thing's for sure: I know it will be a while before I quit making jokes that end with "trust me...I'm a rock star."