the funniest line I've heard today

taken from an article on Ice-T's new rap album"

"The old Ice-T was like, 'I will kill everybody,' but the new Ice-T is kinda like, 'by the way, I'm not gonna kill you guys"

Actually, the whole article's pretty hilarious.

a holiday link

In honor of the second best holiday of the year (the best is still Groundhog's Day...how can you not love a day that Freudian?), I present a link to a Wikipedia peice on the best horror icon of all time, Count Floyd.

Okay, everyone, on three, let's have a "woooooooo!"

relative-killing time

Now is officially the start of the period of the semester when I am responsible for people's relatives dying. In the last day or so, I've had five grandparents, two friends, and three cousins die. If I would've known I had such power, I might've conducted my classes differently, been less strict on the relative-killing deadlines.

conversation as an event

Somewhere around the time I was 24, me and my father started to go out together and watch Monday Night Football at a sports bar. At the time, I was just getting back into football after a long exile, and it seemed as good as a place as any to continue this return to a sport which I used to love (and have come to love again).

We moved from bar to bar, year after year. We drank plenty of beer, ate plenty of wings. We watched a lot of football...and yes, it was good.

The football, however, was secondary. What ended up happening more than anything else was that I got to know my father as a person. Before the football nights, he had been just "Dad"...someone I loved, for sure, but not someone I really knew. This was really no one's fault...he was in the military for ages, and he did work a lot, but I was a moody, uncommunicative kid (how much has changed...(?)) who really didn't bond with too many people, and that sure didn't help. I got my mother because I spent a lot of time with her, but my father remained a little bit of a mystery.

Monday Night Football changed all that. We got to just talk. I found out that at work, when I was pizza manager guy, I operated just like he did, disciplined just like he did. I got to hear stories of his youth and compare them with my own. I heard Vietnam stories...clearly not all of them, but probably more than anyone else in my family has heard. I discovered that I liked him as a person, not just a father. We became friends.

When I moved up here to Ohio, one of the hardest things was watching that first Monday Night Football game by myself...

I never found anyone else to watch football with on a normal basis. My first roomate, the year before he moved in, used to come over on occasion, but when he moved in, he was never around, especially, it seemed, on Monday nights. A friend of mine used to live downstairs, but he'd only come up once a month. When we were dating, my wife would watch with me, and we would talk...and this was one of the places where I really got to know her and fall in "true love" with her...but she really doesn't enjoy football as a sport, and now that we live together and have other times to talk, she usually goes elsewhere. So football is, unfortunately, sadly, a solitary activity for me.

I've tried to find other activities to fill the void. One of the things I decided when I came up here and started studying Popular Culture was (sensibly, I think) that I needed to experience more Popular Culture. One of the things I did to this end was start watching the various Star Treks.

But I also started watching wrestling, at first as a "I need to figure out what the hell is going on here" activity...but then I found some fellow grad students who watched, so I would hang out with them. When they moved away, I found another student, one from my department, and I started going to the bars to watch the pay-per-view events with him. Eventually, I started going to his house to watch the weekly broadcasts, and I've been doing this at least since 2002.

Last night, me and a few of the regular wrestling watchers went to a TNA Wrestling event up in Detroit. While the show was, itself, very entertaining, a few things happened that made me really reflect on the nature of viewing, conversation, and friendship.

One of my friends, the one at whom's we watch wrestling, is moving away. He moves out this weekend. Although there have been rumors, I found this out for sure last night. I found out because another one of my friends asked him. And, after hearing this, I wonder if I would've known if someone would've asked.

I had loved watching wrestling with my friends...at first, just because I love my friends. I did grow to love the entertainment, but it has always been secondary for me. We were doing more than watching a stupid televised version of a fictional athletic competition...we were building community.

Or so I used to think.

After my friend's revelation, I started to wonder about the state of friendship altogether. Is it even possible to have friendships centered around one activity? Does that just lead to situational friendships? How well would I relate to many of them outside of the situation of wrestling viewing? And is the fact that I rarely can get them to do things other than wrestling a sign that they have these kind of thoughts as well?

None of these thoughts diminished how much I like this guy. I guess that what I hope for when I enter one of these hang-out situations is that the friendships I develop can expand beyond the actual event, that they can spread, that we can do other things, and that the event will quickly become secondary to everyone. But I don't seem to be able to get these situational friends to do anything else, for the most part. Is this, I wonder, due to the way that other people view their activities and the situational friends associated with them? Or is the fault somewhere within me?

Even though I've always been a quiet, shy kind of guy in many ways, I've also always had a thirst for friends, and I want more close friends. Right now, however, there's probably only three people in town with whom I can hang out regardless of the situation or event and just talk, hold a good conversation, and have that be the center of whatever we're doing, not the event or place where we're meeting...and I love these people dearly...but one of them has a family, and another one is busily dissertating, so that can limit contact. I wish I could pull them all to a quiet bar just to talk on a regular basis...and it's a shame that our schedules often limit this. I enjoy these people, but most of all, I need them at some deep level.

And I do have plenty of friends who live outside of Bowling Green, people whom I love and feel tremendously close to, but the distances can work against us there. I try to maintain contact, but I always get caught up in my work, and I never can do enough to be as close to these people as I would like. I've done an okay job with some, not so good with others, and others still have fallen off the face of the earth for me...much to my sadness. I try, but I never seem to have the time to put into overcoming the distances.

So, last night, I was thinking these thoughts when I got home. I should've been elated from the very good wrestling show and the fine conversation that did result, but instead, frankly, I was feeling a bit morose.

I got ready for bed and brushed my teeth. I tried to quietly crawl into bed, but my wife moved...I thought I had woken her up, but she assured me that she just went to bed herself. I told her I had a good night.

Then, my wife, my lover, my friend, held me...and that made everything go away, made everything disappear, save my wife's touch.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, you don't need an event or a reason...and you don't even need the conversation...

where are the top tens?

For those of you who remember, I currently do a spot on a friend of mine's weekly radio program "Off The Record," now on every Friday from 10 to noon, which you can listen to in real time here. My normal segment is a top ten, and I have, in the past, posted several of them here.

I would like to do so again. However, I am on the job market, and one of the things that's been in the news (at least in the academic circles) is the use of candidate's personal blogs as a tool in job searches.

This is where the top tens might be a problem. My main goal in writing these lists is to make my friends laugh. As such, I consider them comedy first and foremost, so issues such as taste or correctness are not really in my mind. Yes, they can tow the line of crudeness, but that's the type of humor the show strives for, so that's how I've been writing them.

However, I realize that they might give potential employers the wrong impression. So, it is with great regret, that I have decided to pull them from my blog. I'm very proud of them, so I don't want to do this, but they might work against me in the job market...so they gotta go.

I am still going to do the lists. You can still hear them on "Off The Record," every Friday from 10 to noon, which you can listen to in real time here. As far as I understand, they will be podcasted. And who knows? A link to a blog dedicated to these top tens might appear on the right of this page...you never know...

I look like who?

For those of you who have been following the "who does Mike remind you of?" saga, the one's I've heard lately are John Denver, Tim Robbins, Alan Shore (from Boston Legal), and so forth. Well, on my MySpace page, I just heard another one...Father Mulcahy from M.A.S.H. While my wife, a M.A.S.H. fan, will no likely be pleased, I'm kinda disturbed by the notion...

the way things go/miscellaneous notes

Remember when my throat went all throbby-throbby a few weeks ago? Well, just as I was starting to shake my bronchitis, my wonderful wife got a cold. She then gave me her cold. I then gave her my bronchitis. This is all sadly typical. For about three weeks, we were living in what I like to call "The House of Mucus and Phlem."

New photos up on my MySpace page. I now also have a Facebook site, if anyone wants to be my friend.

This Friday, I return to the weekly radio program Off The Record"...we will be on-air from 10 to 2, and you can listen along here.

job stuff on the web

If anyone's curious, I have recently revised my web page for potential employers. I've got some pdfs of some articles up there, if you ever wanted to see my scholarship. I am also taking advice, if anyone has any.

take that, Freud

Last night, I had a dream that my spousal unit and I were having a new house built, and our kitchen designer was Harry S. Truman. For some reason, he had died his hair orange.

I'm just not finding this one in my copy of The Interpretation of Dreams...

evaluation

I was looking through old student reviews, and one anonymous comment stood out...one of my students from a section of Scientific and Technical Report Writing thought my course was unconstitutional...I wish I could include the quote, because it's fascinating in a car-wreck way, but I'm assuming this would not be very ethically sound to do so...

random thought while driving to school

Do you remember when trucking companies used to be called trucking companies? I never thought I would see the day when a big rig would be part of a "logistics corporation"...it kinda spoils the whole "Convoy" song/phenomenon.

research-minded again

Long time readers of this blog have noted my struggles trying to balance earning enough money to support myself with actually living up to my identity as a scholar and actually doing research/writing. When I was a lowly doctoral candidate, there was a lag between finishing my coursework and passing my exams which made my dissertation the first real bit of research I did in months. Then I started (sob) adjuncting and working part-time (at the zoo, no less) for two years, which, apart from a presentation or two and a review essay, was a scholarship-free zone...I just didn't have time or energy to do serious writing. And it took me a full year to get used to the heavy grading load of a 5/4 composition teaching schedule, where it seems you always have papers. But I love my students...

On this front, however, I think I have made a break-through. I have been working on a book review-turned-full essay with a friend of mine...I have high hopes for this exposé of ethnography. I just been accepted to the 2007 Northeast Modern Language Association conference (and my panel chair seems wildly optimistic about my paper). In my pursuit to figure out exactly how network theory and cultural studies can usefully intersect, I spent the majority of this weekend reading several scholarly books (in my football time, of course). And while watching Monday Night Football, I got an idea for another essay which requires my immediate attention.

This is good, because in my darkest hours of grading over the past year, I have felt like my prime identity role was of paper grader...I now feel like I did when I started doctoral school. I have the buzz.

Watch out, academic world.

throat all throbby-throbby

Last Tuesday, while at school, I noticed that I was starting to feel all drunk/stoned...but just the unpleasant aspects. As I had been "living clean" for a few days, this came as a bit of a surprise to me. Then I realized it must be some kind of cold in the early stages. Needless to say, this put a bit of a damper on "Speak Like A Pirate" day.

Later that night, I started to cough. I kept coughing. Coughing, in my body's opinion, then took precedence over things I would rather be doing, such as sleeping. I kept coughing...and it was, most disappointingly, non-productive coughing. Finally, Sunday night, as I tried to watch football and ignore my throbbing, glowing throat, I decided that perhaps, yes, I did in fact need to go to the doctor.

Got up early Monday, got an appointment for 10:45 am and thanked the heavens that I actually finally have health insurance. Finally saw the doctor at 11:50. After examining me, he told me that I had acute bronchitus. This was a relief, because at first, I thought he was coming on to me ("I have a cute what???").

Now on drugs...antibiotics that "run through me" and give me stomach cramps, and a cough syrup which is clearly codeine...which, if I were ever really going to be a druggie, might be my drug of choice...

While I am thankful that the healing may finally begin, special thanks needs to be extended towards my spousal unit for not kicking me out of bed during a 4am coughing fit.

I become non-contagious on Wednesday. Watch out, world.

My Name is Earl dvd

Yarr...

Avast, me beauties. This fine morn, the My Name is Earl season one dvd set was released into the wild blue yonder. Shortly after the crack o' dawn, I smartly sailed over to Best Buy to pick up me booty...the Instant Karma edition, narry clad in a flannel shirt cover. Me bilge-drinking bretheren of the coast and I will splice the mainbrace with the finest grog when we get a chance to watch. Godspeed, me hearties!

(translation, for those losers not participating in National Speak Like a Pirate day: Hi. Today, they released the My Name is Earl season one dvd set. This morning, I got the Instant Karma edition, clad in a flannel shirt cover. I can't wait until I can get together with my friends to drink and watch it. Thanks!)

dumb and dumber

This weekend, the fine (?) folks at Girls Gone Wild were in Bowling Green. I gave my lovely wife permission to go wild if she so decided, but she declined.

Also, tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate day. Celebrate. I'm gonna have to come up with a good post to do in pirate-ese.

celebrate good times!

I just finished the last of my first grading bout! Wooohooo! Party!!!

(now, if I didn't have more coming next week...damn this life as a comp Lecturer)

literalism

I'm in grading papers. I have a sign on the door which says "Please knock...I'm in, just working." One of my more insane colleagues just knocked on the door. She didn't want anything, but she said she felt she had to follow instructions...

because I'm such an expert...

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

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

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

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

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

two websites of notice

Rate Your Students, which is "a public forum where faculty and students can work out the tricky dynamic of the modern classroom. Students can tell us why they won't take the iPod out during a lecture, and professors can tell us why their clothes are so frumpy."

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which you just have to see.

pressure buildup and release

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't you wish you were in BG?