on the road post one

The Detroit airport is one of my favorite...when you arrive on a puddle-jumper, you arrive on an outpost terminal. To get to the main terminal, you have to go under one of the runways. There, they have a psychadelic light show, thunder sounds, and Japanime-esque music...it's what I imagine Tokyo must be like, down to the high-speed train in the main terminal.

I ate at the airport. Note to the restaurant...Mexican food should have some taste other than spackle.

After some junk food (Crazy Bread!) to wash the no-taste of the Mexican food out of my mouth, I hit an airport bar...one of my favorite classes of places. I ordered a bloody mary (an airport tradition) and met my neighbors. The guy to my left was having a plate of french fries for desert "because I had sushi for dinner and needed some starch." As he was reaching for the ketchup, he told me that, as a liberal, he generally only uses Heinz. We then speculated on how much money an airport strip club would make and why we never see them. He also speculated that passengers should have a drink or two before going onboard...so they are properly lubricated to deal with terrorists if they encounter any. These are the types of conversations you can only have at airport bars.

Why is CNN so omnipresent in airports? At the Toledo airport bar, there were two televisions, one tuned to CNN and one tuned to something else. When I sat in front of it, I found out that it was on second day coverage of some minor golf tournament...that had been rain-delayed. Scintillating television, I can tell you. The bartender (a 40-something blonde, minorly leatherish, lived and tanned too hard and it showed in her skin...and every airport in the world has one just like her) sighed, let out an "Oh, man," and tuned the television to...CNN. Thank the heavens for alcohol.

The airport had the PA warning and announcements in several languages, but the English ones were the only ones done by a male...all Asian languages were announced by females. Either this means something, or the three hour layover was starting to take effect.

We boarded the plane and sat on the runway for an hour while waiting for thunderstorms to pass. This brings to mind: how can airplane seats be so unsuited for sitting? Their concaveness really hurt my back.

As the flight attendant passed beverages out to the window passengers beside me, I could feel some effervescence rain down on my arm...it was very surreal.

From a certain distance and altitude, the nighttime city lights of a metropolis look like crashing waves of molten lava.

I know this post is minorly random, but you'll just have to wait for closure...if I get any, you'll hear it here first.

terminology

Am I the only one tremendously disappointed that no one ever calls anyone else a "rapscallion" or "scaliwag?"

Polish blah

For those requesting an update on the Polish festival...it sucked. It was mostly a collection of merchants selling stuff that had nothing to do with Poles (a windcatcher table?) or selling food that wasn't Polish (who would eat gyros at a Polish festival?). The pirogi booth was selling frozen merchandise dipped in the fryer. There was a tent where oompah music was going to be played, but that hardly masked my disappointment. The only cool thing was being able to wander around while drinking beer.

I have higher hopes for the upcoming Montpelier Bean Days festival.

post-vacation insights 3--visitors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

reasons you should visit my Flickr page

I have many witty photos up on my Flickr page, such as this one, which I entitle "wrestling with alcohol"...enjoy!

cinema and fandom

Last night, me and three great friends went to see the midnight sneak peek of the second Pirates of the Carribean film...which I can definitively say was...very long.

There were a number of previews, but the one that got the best reaction was...for the upcoming Transformers film. Hummm...life just gets curiouser and curiouser.

festivals

One of the things that fascinated me most about living in the north was the overwhelming number of summer festivals...I guess it has something to do with revelling in the sun while you can...that, and a desire to drink cheap beer in a plastic, fenced-off area after eating crappy food and listening to either oompah music or bluegrass.

The last two years, Lori and I have wanted to do more festivals, and the one that I have been pushing for is the McClure Radish festival. McClure is this microscopic township just west of Bowling Green which is apparently "the radish capital of the world." I personally hate radishes, but the idea of having a whole festival dedicated to them is both perverse and kitchy enough to be very appealing. However, we keep missing it, damnit.

I read about the Michigan Elvisfest in this weekend's paper, and it also sounded perfect...but alas, it's $15 a pop...and I love kitch, but not that much.

So instead, this weekend, we're going to the Lagrange Street Polish Festival in Toledo. I suspect the food will be awesome. Stay tuned for updates.

they can dazzle or delight....

When my sister married, she (much like me) was lucky to get very cool in-laws. About six years before I moved up to Ohio, me and my brother flew into Ann Arbor MI to visit my sister, and we spent an afternoon or two drinking with the in-laws. When I came to Ohio to find an apartment, my sister's in-laws treated me like lost family, which made me feel really good.

There is the added benefit that they are of Polish descent...and as little as I like so subscribe to ethnic type-casting, I will admit that they share a very large zest for life. Me and my sister's father-in-law have somewhat become drinking buddies. So, since the fourth of July is his birthday, it becomes a nice multi-layered celebration, and the beer does tend to flow.

Unfortunately, since in the last few years the fourth has fallen on a weekday and either my wife or I have to work the next day, we usually don't get to stay very late...and thus miss out on all the major firework displays in the area. There are some fireworks, but they're limited to sparklers, dog-frightening poppers, and the occasional bottle rocket which my sister's husband sets off starting around 4ish...when it's completely and utterly pointless, as the sunlight renders the explosion totally invisible. You have to, however, admire the determination, and I have to admit to holding onto a lit roman candle or two in the midday sun myself.

So the wonderful wive and I usually end up driving home just as it finally turns dark...but that's okay, because we get to see most every firework display between Dexter and Ann Arbor. The sober wife drives, while I, the drunken husband, hold her hand...and we "oooh" and "ahhh" at the distant explosions that occasionally peak over the treetops, even though, to us, they're only the size of a penny.

This year, our timing was perfect...we got to see the entire Bowling Green firework display. We picked it up when the explosions were more or less specks, and we kept it in sight as we breezed down I-75. As we got closer to town and got closer to the fireworks, the pace of the show quickened. When we drove past the BGSU football stadium, where they were shooting them off, the performance started to peak. We pulled into the BG main road right as the fireworks climaxed, and we could see the explosions the clearest right as the finale ran its course...and we were driving close enough to feel the "booms."

Of course, through the clouds of gunpowder smoke rolling in on Wooster, we could see people in lawn chair in the front of the Big Boy, the various gas stations, and the fast food places. They all had great seats too, but while they had to fight traffic, we were already almost home.

I found it all much more romantic than probably would've a normal person.

another reason why my wife rocks

So Lori and I were watching season 1 of Veronica Mars on dvd...a great show that I initially ignored due to an awful advertising campaign. In one episode, one of the characters is watching Clash of the Titans, and my wife looks at me and says, "Wow, isn't that an example of a simulacrum?"

My witty response: "Huh?"

My wife: "That's Harry Hamlin in that movie, right? He's also one of the character's father...isn't that what Baudrillard was talking about? Did I get that right?"

...as if I ever need more proof that I am not worthy of this woman...

announcements

• Once again, I will be on WBGU's weekly radio program "Off The Record," from 2 to 4 today (and every Tuesday (until they kick me off).
  
• There are new art photos up on my Flickr page
  
• I also have more normal photos up on Snapfish...e-mail me if you want to see.
  

post-vacation insights 2--disease, mortality, and "wook at da pretty puddy tat"

My dad was in the Air Force, and I spent my earliest childhood in Germany. When we moved back to the States, we decided that we needed a pet...they were problematic to have if you lived overseas, because often moving from one country to another would entail long periods of quarantine...the British, at the time, would hold pets for 6 months to make sure they didn't have, among other things, rabies (for whatever reason, the British seem scared to death of rabies...hence all the references in Monty Python...yet I digress).

On our first visit to my Florida grandmother, we picked out a cat. She was a mongrel, as most cats are, but mostly a mixture of tortiseshell and calico (we think). My mom named her (unimaginatively and inexplicably) Tigerlilly. We took her to our new home of South Carolina.

Tigerlilly was a great cat, albeit a little weird (as, we discovered, cats are wont to be). She loved olives...she would devour them, roll around in their juices, and generally look like a smack addict in the throes of a good buzz. She would fall asleep with her head in my shoe (again, a "high" thing?). She would fall asleep inside my violin case. If you were laying down on your stomach, she would climb onto and then fall asleep on your back.

Tigerlilly died after a bout of diabetes. I never even knew that cats got diabetes, but apparently so. It was sad giving her injections of insulin, and when her liver finally gave out, she couldn't really move, let alone get up and run around like she always did...so we had to put her to sleep.

Our second cat was a stray my mom picked up and named (again, unimaginatively) Muffin. Muffy must've been beaten by her previous owners, because I have never seen such a nervous, anxiety-ridden animal. While she could be nice, she hid from most everyone save my mom. She also died before her time...leukemia, I think.

Next, we got two sisters, strays from where my grandparents lived. The first one was a long-haired siamese-looking cat, very fluffy, with gorgeous ice-blue eyes. Mom named her Cleopatra, but in order to escape the tyranny of what we considered dumb names, my brother and I called her fuzzhead. Fuzzhead loved to be outside in our screened-in porch. She liked to be cuddled, but usually only after making you follow her on a quick jaunt around the house...usually after circling a table five or six times, looking back at you to make sure you're still following, she'd dramatically fall over...that was her sign that "cuddle time" had commenced.

Fuzzhead's sister was a brown tortise shell-esqe cat with leopard print spots. Mom named her Sheeba, but my brother and I called her Spider in celebration of her overly long legs and tails. Spidey was a talker...she would howl for ages, almost never shutting up. She was also very fast, lean, and very smart. Once, when Fuzzhead fell into our hot tub, Spidey took it upon herself to notify us with those howls.

After I moved to Bowling Green, our vet found a lump on Spidey's back. They took her to a hospital for surgery, but the cancer returned after a year or so...and that was that.

The final cat was a long-haired black cat with white splotches who took it upon herself to sit in our driveway during a thunderstorm until Mom came home...she was rain-soaked and pathetic enough to be taken in. I like to think that word spread in the cat community that we were good people.

In memory of the slotches, Mom named her Smudge...finally, a good name. As a kitten, Smudge was not pretty...she had monsterous beady eyes and ears that were way too big for her head. She really grew into herself, though. Smudge was also strange...she was abandoned at an early age, and she never really knew how to purr...she wheezed instead; she also couldn't properly meow...hers was more a "mwah." She was also very sweet. She would run to the door to see me, she would sit outside the bathroom door as I showered, "mwah"ing at me.

Smudge was probably my favorite cat. Again, though, when I was in BG, they found signs of disease. By the time they caught the diabetes, it was really too late...another one of my pets I never really got to say goodbye to.

I thought about this a whole bunch when I was down on vacation. Mostly, this was because Fuzzhead is the only one left. She's about 15 and still healthy (although thinner). While Fuzzhead is as cute and loving as ever, I couldn't help but wondering how much I'm gonna see her again. However, I don't want my time with her to be spent in sadness, melancholy, or a weird "in memorial" feeling...I want to remember her as an alive, vital, loving being...to do elsewise would not be doing justice to this wonderful personality who has made my life happy so often...so I spent some of my vacation fighting my own emotions.

I also couldn't help thinking of the weird state of diseases and animals. So far, not one of the cats we've had has died of old age. Is this normal? Is cancer, diabetes, and leukemia really that prevalent in animals? Later, when we went to visit two of my best FL friends, we found out that their long time dog has had both of its eyes removed due to glaucoma. She gets along fine, but it did make me think again.

Of course, thinking of things like this are never a good idea. Not only can it spoil the general spirit of vacation, it can cause you to start treating those around you as potential source memories, rather than just getting out there and living life...thus creating good memories. It will also stop you from enjoying those around you...so I had to make an effort to not nostalgize when Fuzzhead would have me follow her around the house en route to a cuddle.

Beyond that, I'm not really sure what the lesson to all this was...except maybe to enjoy the "now," whatever that might be, because the future is so uncertain...that, and to hug your kitty closely.

pain and letters

finger...burnt

skin...tender

ability to type...diminishing

Mike...resting

post-vacation insights 1--travel thoughts

I'm not sure if I'm just tremendously unlucky or not, but South Carolina sucks. More specifically, their roads suck.

Hey, I lived there and enjoyed it, but both during the trip down to FLA and back, we encountered traffic in SC. Heavy interstate traffic. On our trip down, I thought that everyone must just be heading to the beach...it was nice and sunny. But why was everyone heading for the mountains on Sunday?

There were also several times when we hit bumper to bumper traffic, and there usually was not even a decent wreck...or any sign of debris...or anything as congesting as a dead bunny, let alone enough to cause a jam.

On the plus side, South Carolina did have the highest per capita of attractive people at their rest areas. Some states had an ugly factor unsurpassed by all save WalMart, but SC had some real babes.

On the way down, every hotel room within 100 miles of Asheville NC was booked. Asheville? Since when did this become a vacation resort?

On the way back, we got a nice hotel in Kentucky. I went to a convenience store to buy a beer (as to better unwind after staring at traffic for 13 hours), only to be informed by the clerk that I was in a dry county. I had no idea such things existed in this day and age...outside of The Dukes of Hazzard, that is. The stupid thing was that the clerk did tell me that I could get beer three miles down the road. Hey, that certainly will deter alcoholism...drunks may be addicted, but they don't like to travel? Hah.

As a result of this, I have to recommend that nobody ever actually stop in Richmond KY. Nice hotel and all, but the dry county thing is not really what you want when you've been on the road...plus, it makes the surrounding areas look like they're still living during prohibition. Guys, I say this as a southerner...if you want people to not make stupid jokes about how backwards the south is, please do not do stupid, backward things. I really hate it when people willfully live up to the ugly stereotypes placed upon them.

A positive? In some states, I have noticed the arrival of a new highway sign..."Watch Out For Fallen Rocks." Thank goodness that someone has abandoned "Falling Rocks"...they must've realized that you really can't spot rocks that are currently falling or possibly pay attention to rocks that might fall. The present tense in that one was stupid (almost as much as "Deer Crossing"...if you spot a deer, it will most certainly already be inside your winshield), and the move to an advisory to watch for rocks actually on the roadway (which can be seen and thus avoided) is a rare sign of intelligence.

all hail to the chiefs

So one of my stupid summer projects is to read biographies of all the presidents, in order. In part, this is because I feel inadequate in my knowledge of history, particularly early American (I'm much better in the post-WWI era). I know this will not completely correct this, as it does very much fit into the "great man" theory of history...but it's a start. I'm going from Washington onward, and so far, I'm up to Thomas Jefferson.

I will be posting my thoughts here. They will be very preliminary, most likely very shallow...this I know. I'm doing an overly narrow study by looking at one biographer's take on each, so there are a multitude of problems. Look at this as an opportunity to set me straight.

resemblance?

During my last visit, my Mother in Law informed me that I remind her of James Spader's character, Alan Shore, from Boston Legal. She claims this is more a matter of wit and speaking style...and that she is not claiming I'm a sleazy womanizer, honestly.

I'm not sure how to feel about this, to tell the truth.

themikedubose imagery

I have just posted a link to my Flickr page in the "themikedubose on the web: section to your right. On my Flickr page, I have posted some of my better, more "arty" photographs. All hail the digital camera...so I can waste 50% of my shots before finding anything remotely usable. If you have a Flickr page, please let me know.

voyage back to the ancestral homeland

For any readers of this blog who live in the area, the wife and I will be going to visit my ancestral homeland. Yes, we're going to Florida. We will be there June 10th through the 17th. While it's not a long visit, we would like to see anyone we can. E-mail me, or feel free to call my parents when I'm there...the number hasn't changed.

Thomas Dolby was wrong!

Yesterday, I became a radio star...or at least a personality...okay, damnit, a guest. But I was broadcast! And that was a dream of mine...

Two of my friends got a radio show on the BGSU college station, WBGU. They call it "Off The Record," as it's the only talk show currently on the channel. Standard news, liberal student outrage, and gross-out humor, with wrestling commentary. They have a MySpace page for the show, and you can subscribe to their blog for show previews (if you're on MySpace, that is). You can also listen in via the station's web page...they're on 2-4 on Tuesdays. I'm also trying to talk them into podcasting.

Yesterday was their inaugural show, and they invited me on as a guest commentator for the wrestling segment. However, I was so busy configuring my new computer, I forgot about it. I only remembered about 3:15, when I was walking over to a friend's house to return a drill (used to assemble some more furniture-in-a-box...masculinity reclaimed!)...and luckily my new mp3 player also has a radio. So, I listened while walking and then called in so I could still contribute.

Of course, as soon as they put me on the air, I walk past a house full of barking dogs. About twenty minivans blow past me. More to the point, since I am a moron, I call in before dropping off the drill...so I have to walk circles around town to kill time while talking.

I did manage to drop off the drill and get to the studio before the show ended, so I became a full-fledged guest instead of just a caller, and it was fun...although I admit that having to keep FCC regulations in mind when I was talking was rough. Now we can only see if "Off The Record" actually invites me back.

At any rate, I am now a real, live radio star. Now all I have to do is star in a play, join a band and play out, have someone start a fan club, and earn a million dollars a week, and it will truly be a good year.

technology update

The latest bout of incommunicado was brought forth by a serious need for a technology update. You see, when I got my full time job last year, I also got a very nice, top of the line Dell computer...and I do most of my computing throughout the semester at my office. I've gotten spoiled by high network connection and a very solid machine.

When I started working at home this summer, I knew that I would have to put up with dial-up...it costs $9 a month, as opposed to $35 a month for DSL (the cheapest price I could find)...so I knew I would suffer some drop in performance.

What I didn't realize is that my machine had turned to crap. It was a nice computuer, but it was built in 11/99...and yes, that's a good, long time for technology, but its day was up. Whenever I would try to do anything, it would freeze. Moving from one open window to another took 30 seconds. It had no USB 2.0, so I couldn't use a thumb drive or hook up my camera.

After shopping at a local computer store, a friend suggested I try TigerDirect.com, and I managed to order an awesome eMachines system. It came in two days, but it gave me some nightmares by refusing to install my printer and making Word repeatedly crash after thirty seconds. My friend came over and solved the problem by installing a new printer driver, something that I tried to do for two days...and he did it a way that I tried (and which failed for me).

So the last day or two have been spent getting the computer loaded with all my files and software, properly configured, and all that. I feel much more tech savvy now, though. I even went out and bought my first thumb drive and mp3 player. I have sworn to buy a digital camera phone eventually and start mobloging. A Flickr and Snapfish page are not far behind.

I'm not trying to be a tech overlord or anything, but it is nice that people won't still laugh when they hear what I have. Plus my computer is now nicer than my parent's machine again! I just want supremacy in some small way...

channelling Neal

"We sow the seed, nature grows the seed, and then we eat the seed."

Neal, The Young Ones.

Lately, I've had a very slight desire to go "back to the land." So, after doing some preliminary shopping for a new computer (the one I have is still running a 333 Pentium II, which made the computer guy's eyes pop out...apparently, it's old...circa 1999 stuff is not still state of the art), I hit the local nursery.

First off, you have to love anywhere which gives out free popcorn. Large selection of herbs, so I got basil, chives, parsley, peppermint, cilantro, and oregano. I also bought a few new pots (since the plastic ones they came in didn't look too sturdy).

When I asked the nice girl working the counter (I'm not being condescending, really; she looked about 14) how much potting mix I should buy, she showed me their free potting/transplant station...and even gave me a primer. So I rolled up my sleeves and dived in.

I have to say, it was an experience that my friend Cassandra (of Adventures of Fifi) would appreciate...something completely new, something I've never even thought of doing before. It was oddly satisfying to transplant, and I have a feeling that my late Granddad would've approved, him being a farmer and all.

After driving carefully over and still spilling four of the plants on one turn (leaving a fine layer of potting mix on my passenger floorboard), I arranged the pots in my front yard's planting bed and watered them. I hope they live...not only do I enjoy the feeling of being their caretaker (more than I would've expected...what's wrong with me?), I want to eat them.

I'm open for suggestions on names for the suckers...although I think I have to call the basil...Basil. Lack of imagination, I know, but John Cleese must be recognized.

increasing my web presence for no good reason

For whatever reason, I now have my very own Friendster page. As I know absolutely no one on Friendster, this is especially stupid.

Anyone there who can give me good advice on Facebook...to take this level of web idiocy to a new plateau?

it's a nice day to start again

This weekend, I went to a wedding with my wife...it was for one of her college friends. Two things of note:

1. During the actual wedding, the couple had a guitarist and flutist play any music, which was refreshing. After the recessional, when the bride and groom came back in the chapel to shake everyone's hand as they left, the musicians were playing something that stuck in my head...but I couldn't immediately place it. After a few minutes, it struck me...they were playing Neil Young's "Natural Anthem" off Ragged Glory...which impressed me to no end.
   
2. I met one of Lori's friend's husband-to-be, a nice guy named Mark, who, during the reception, said "Actually, I don't mind "Cococabana"...the original."
   

Don't they both just bring a tear to your eye?

activist time

Okay, you US citizen readers, this is the time to get out and get angry...and to start writing letters and e-mails to your elected representatives.

By now, you've probably heard about the W/GOP plan to grant a gas rebate check to all American consumers (article here). What you may not know is that, attached to that bill, is a provision to open the Alaska wildlife reserve to oil drilling.

Now, everything I've heard about that oil deposit is that it wouldn't actually yield benefits for a large number of years. And there is utterly no hope of getting that oil and keeping the surrounding areas uncontaminated...drilling equipment, trucks, construction, these things all yeild pollution.

So what the GOP plan is essentially doing is offering a bribe to the average citizen in exchange for us looking the other way while they pilliage one of the most pure parts of our nation...for what looks like negligible gains.

If this gets you mad (and I hope it raises that ire), then send e-mails to your senators (here in Ohio, that's Senator George Voinovich and Senator Mike DeWine. I then suggest following those up with e-mails to your representatives and to our president. Let these people know how you feel. While I don't know if it will do any good, it will at least make your conscience feel a little less dirty.

102 movies you have to see--a survey

While killing time between classes, I found a link to a RogerEbert.com piece entitled "102 Movies You Must See Before...," and to my surprise, I've only seen 36 of them. I'm not sure if this is a good number or not, but I feel I should see more...because there are some serious ommissions on my list.

I only picked the movies that I am 100% sure I've seen all the way through and could discuss with any degree of accuracy. I'm proposing a survey...how many of these have you seen? Figure it out and post your results in the comment section. Here's my list:

1. "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) Stanley Kubrick
   
2. "Alien" (1979) Ridley Scott
   
3. "Annie Hall" (1977) Woody Allen
   
4. Apocalypse Now" (1979) Francis Ford Coppola*
   
5. "Bambi" (1942) Disney
   
6. "The Battleship Potemkin" (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
   
7. "The Big Red One" (1980) Samuel Fuller
   
8. "Blade Runner" (1982) Ridley Scott
   
9. "Carrie" (1975) Brian DePalma
   
10. "Casablanca" (1942) Michael Curtiz
    
11. "Chinatown" (1974) Roman Polanski
    
12. "Citizen Kane" (1941) Orson Welles
    
13. "Dirty Harry" (1971) Don Siegel
    
14. "Do the Right Thing" (1989 Spike Lee
    
15. "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) Stanley Kubrick
    
16. "Duck Soup" (1933) Leo McCarey
    
17. "E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) Steven Spielberg
    
18. "Easy Rider" (1969) Dennis Hopper
    
19. "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Irvin Kershner
    
20. "The Exorcist" (1973) William Friedkin
    
21. "Fargo" (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
    
22. "Fight Club" (1999) David Fincher
    
23. "Frankenstein" (1931) James Whale
    
24. "GoodFellas" (1990) Martin Scorsese
    
25. "The Graduate" (1967) Mike Nichols
    
26. "Jaws" (1975) Steven Spielberg
    
27. "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) David Lean
    
28. "Mad Max 2" / "The Road Warrior" (1981) George Miller
    
29. "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) John Huston
    
30. "Metropolis" (1926) Fritz Lang
    
31. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) Terry Jones & Terry
    Gilliam
    
32. "On the Waterfront" (1954) Elia Kazan
    
33. "Pulp Fiction" (1994) Quentin Tarantino
    
34. "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) Billy Wilder
    
35. "Taxi Driver" (1976) Martin Scorsese
    
36. "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Victor Fleming
    

take that, ideological certainty....

Just when I think I'm relatively good on one of my internal convictions, somthing comes to thwack me around.

Case in point: I write a nice post about gender roles ("women work at home"). Then I go home and attempt to tackle the assembly of one of those "cabinet in a box" deals. Suddenly, my ideological certainty starts taking a pounding.

First off, I have mixed thoughts about ready to assemble furniture. I don't like moving to cheap pressboard surroundings, but I'm broke...so that tends to ameliorate my objections. And it would be sad to admit that I long for the day when I can buy furniture that's actually made of real wood.

The first part of the basic assembly went fine. Then I had to attach the doors to the unit, and the hinges needed to be screwed in. While there was some level of pre-drilling, the holes looked like they were bored using a smallish thumbtack. So I proceed to screw, and not a single hinge screw goes in straight. Every one is at a different cock-eyed angle, and they 90% strip out before I can get them even somewhat tight.

Then I have to hang the doors on the carcass of the unit, which is that much more of a nightmare, because you have to hold them just so. I'm sweating, cursing, very close to throwing things. Luckily, my wife is patient. She has to be, living with me.

The unit got put together, and somehow, it actually doesn't look too bad. Through the travails, however, the major damage was to my ego. I feel terrible, not being able to smoothly assemble a stupid piece of pre-made furniture. I feel horribly inept, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm an academic (and therefore have no practical skills) or if it's because I'm not a "real man."

Yes, I doubt my "machismo" factor at times don't laugh, honest). And it bothers me that this bothers me. I want to be able to assemble stuff, to build stuff, to do something with my hands, but I cannot. And I feel inadequate due to my failures to do these things, even though I think I've never fully bought into the traditional 50s masculine stereotype. Ready to assemble furniture does this to me every time...it always precipitates an ideological catastrophy.

Luckily, my friend Eric could meet me for a mini-pitcher of beer or three ("beer...the cause of and solution to all of life's problems"), and we could discuss jingoistic patriotism, Fox News (the best comedy on television), monuments/architecture and the politics of use/meaning, student housing, and a whole bunch of other deep/important sounding stuff. I eventually wander home and get to fall asleep next to the woman of my dreams. Life is good again.

I still, however, dread the next redecorating decision...I don't know if I can take another shelf unit.

see, this is why wrestling fans need a college education

During the TNA Wrestling pay-per-view on Sunday, one of the characters, Father James Mitchell, used a Nietzsche quote in his promo...and used it accurately!

I love this sport! German philosophy always goes better with chairshots and blood.

initial thoughts on my first visit to a "District"

Washington DC was fun. Much like I always do, I looked upon the trip as more of a vacation than a work outing to a conference. So I only went to my own panel (there was only one other panel I wanted to see, but I overslept) and spent a lot of time socializing.

Cuisines? Peruvian (whole fried fish!), Indian (lamb chops rock), Chinese (in Chinatown, with a massive noodle-twirling chef), and some of the worst bar food I've ever had. We also were next to a good ice cream/sub sandwich/pizza place. One night, one of my friends got a sausage patty pizza. They were honest to goodness sausage patties, bigger than the type you would get at breakfast, and they covered the whole slice. They were tasty if a little heavy.

We stayed at The Highlander Motel ...which made me want to talk in a really bad European accent, swing a sword, and shout "There can be only one!" every few minutes. I wish the "continental breakfast" was a bit more than donuts, and it would've been good if the phones worked, but overall, it wasn't a bad place. It was close to the conference, relatively clean, all my friends were staying there, and someone left a sixpack of Corona in our room's fridge.

We spent a bit more time at our hotel than I could've liked, but none of my friends wanted to go clubbing...for some reason, they prefered watching the Game Show Network...but there was a convenience store nearby, they did have Yuengling (which is a sweet beer), and they did have a regular patron who looked just like Elvis would've, if he were alive and in construction.

DC has a great subway...very Art Deco. I took some photos, and as soon as I get a chance, I'll figure out how to get them online.

More thoughts coming on monuments and museums.

women work at home

My wife brought me home a catalog for The Pampered Chef...they sell good kitchen gear. From what I gather, it largely follows the Tupperware model of home parties and catalogs, all being run by some ordinary person who's been co-opted into being the company's sales force.

They look like they have good stuff...no problem there. My wife even got me a citrus peeler and a plunger measuring cup, both of which will come in handy.

They tend to only have women pictured using the products. This is a little bit more of a problem for me. Lots of men cook, even (according to my brother) a large percentage of construction workers. Does The Pampered Chef not want their business?

It reminds me of when I had a subscription to Cooking Light magazine. I loved the recipes...about 85% of them worked...but I got tired of paying for 100+ pages of women's health advice. It was also a lousy feeling to know that the magazine, rather than looking at me as a customer, kinda treated me as an interloper on women's domain.

The worst thing about The Pampered Chef was that it seemed to only have a women's workforce. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm glad there are options for women who need employment. But why does this style of employment have to focus on gender-specific products? It's another home care product (like Tupperware), or it's beauty (Mary Kay, Avon).

Women get the ability to sell women's products (even when they're not really for only women) to women only. And it strikes me as slightly regressive that they're pushing The Pampered Chef employment as perfect for women because they can still stay at home! There's even a testimonial from a former schoolteacher who became a sales agent...because teaching was apparently too much like a "job" that took her "home." Yes, even though she was doing what's traditionally a woman's job (cough), she still wasn't where she belonged.

Granted, it is better than no women employment opportunities, but this kind of work still reinforces the "housewife" stereotype...and if they gotta work, they should be allowed to have a job which lets them keep their feminine duties up.

I've been of the mind that the main problem with society is that people seem to be bound by rules, regulations, and expectations, and that these are generally based on power hierarchies...in this case, the man works and the woman stays at home. And I've also been of the mindset that society isn't going to change unless we nuke these expectations and fundamentally change the way society operates.

Companies like Mary Kay and The Pampered Chef don't want to change anything. If the world requires that females work, they seem to argue, at least let's let them stay as close to "womanly" duties as possible. And this strikes me as very stupid.

Imagine trying to convince a male construction worker to give up his trade and sell razors and nostril hair trimmers at guy parties...how far would you get with this suggestion? How often would you get beaten up?

back from DC

I have returned from the government wasteland of Washington DC. Expect contacts, e-mails, postings, other weird stuff.

I will have papers coming in from all my students this week, but I'm not sure if that will lead to more posting or less...as I tend to use the blog as a way to procrastinate.

Topics to be covered: monuments, sausage patty pizza, museums, joggers and shoving them into traffic, ethnic food, a few new albums, mass transit, mindless patriotism, commercialism, hotels and people who can't leave them, review essays, academic groupies, words and phrases we need to bring back into use, wrestling and German philosophers, and Elvis (or reasonable facsimilies).

good students

I had a student yesterday tell me the "Paris Hilton Conspiracy Theory of Culture"...I don't remember all the details, but basically, it explained how talentless celebs like Paris are pushed because they make normal folks hate the rich instead of envy them.

I overheard another student say that I was his idol, because I proved that you could get a professional job and still wear sandals.

Students...sometimes, you gotta love them.

Back to the work and non-posting.

random news and notices

The first sign of spring is here...not the birds, not the 50 degree temperatures...but Smoovies reopens for the season! Tonight! For those of you not familiar with Smoovies, I will provide more detail later.

I have decided to use the blog feature on MySpace to document my experiences with...MySpace. Hardly original, I know.

Anyone know how much I need to spend on job-related stuff in order to make doing the itemized deductions worth my while?

Finally, I have a DC conference coming up in about three weeks, so I have to now start writing the damn presentation. I'm not saying that I will be totally incommunicado untill then, but my appearances and posts might be less frequent. If I don't e-mail or call, that is why. I am, however, still available for beer breaks, particularly for Stimmel's or Howards, in case you're in the area.

a calm place to be?

So I'm thinking about applying for a job for next year (I wasn't
planning on moving, but this job posting was written for me) at
Minnesota State University at Moorhead, and their job posting has the
"Facts about the area" section. Moorhead, it appears, is the "Second
Least Stressful Place to Live"...apparently in spite of the bitter cold.

MySpace indeed

So I decided to make the leap and get my very own MySpace page. Why? I dunno...I guess the opportunity to quantify just how big of a loser I am seemed irresistable for a second. I have no idea what to do with it, and as things stand now, I have no friends...so art mirrors life. This is as much a sociological experiment as anything else, so if anything neat happens, I will let you know.

the sioux are coming to save us

from Indanz.com:

Giago: Oglala Sioux president on state abortion law Tuesday, March 21, 2006

"When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother’s life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.

Napoli suggested that if it was a case of “simple rape,” there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli’s description of rape as “simple.” He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by “simple rape.”

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

Strong words from a very strong lady. I hope Ms. Fire Thunder challenges Gov. Rounds and the state legislators on this law that is an affront to all independent women."

MySpace?

A number of friends and loyal readers have told me that they now have MySpace pages. So, a query: what exactly will a MySpace page allow me to do which I do not do here? What are the practical/tangilbe benefits, other than the ability to put up a stupid photo of myself?

Teach me, please!

the state of spam names

These just came in today.

Impregnates E. Warships
Aleksandrina Redondo
Wilfred Dorrance
Manish Strope

...and they will only get sillier

best non-obscene graffitti spotted recently

"Jeff Goldblum is watching."

quote of the day...happy holidays!

"If you want to celebrate St Pat's today, eat a raw potato, build a house out of peat and get yourself shot by an Englishman."...Warren Ellis

This is post 150, by the way...

the book reps are getting scary

I just went to check my mail, and one publisher dropped off a sample textbook...but it was in a gift basket, which included gourmet marmalade, cookies, candy, expensive teas, and so forth. Sheesh.

The part of me that is used to being a nobody wants to scream at them, "don't you know who I am? You're wasting your time on someone with no influence or power!" But who am I to turn down swag?

against the grain

We tried a new bread the other day, a multigrain affair, and it was a hit. So, when I went to the grocery store on Monday, I was going to get another loaf.

My wife wrote down "9 grain bread" on the grocery list. In the bread isle, they had 9 grain, 12 grain, and 15 grain. I picked up the nine, because I trust my wife...but I had suspicions.

When I got home, I checked the empty bag from our last loaf, and, indeed, it was a twelve grain. For at least the next week and a half, we are doomed to have less grains than we got used to with our old bread.

I feel slow, sluggish, and a little ripped off. I'm also curious as to which grains they omitted in order to get the final number down to nine. Were they vital grains? Did they have any dynamic physiological properties? Were they, for example, endorphin releasers?

And what about that 15 grain? Is it a better bread? Will the extra grains give me more vitality? Or is it like a fifteen year Scotch, where the higher number of grains equate to added complexity of taste and aroma?

Will other bakeries try to follow suit? Will we, as a result, suffer grain inflation? Will Wonder, in an attempt to gain lost marketshares, come out with a 20 grain bread? Aunt Millie responding with a 30 grain? Will the grain war escalate?

This raises some vital questions. How many grains, for instance, can one concievably fit into a loaf of bread? What is the maximum grain threshold? Will we put our great scientists to work on constructing an omni-grain bread? Do our enemies have more grains than us? Is there a grain gap? A grain drain?

Will this desire to increas the grains in our bread lead to other scientific advancements? Do genetically modified grains count as a different grain? What about different varieties?

Will we further our astronomical searches in order to find extraterrestrial grains? Can we fit so many grains into a bread that it would, in its infinite denseness, collapse into itself, thus ripping the time-space fabric? Would it cause our universe to collapse into a single granule of grain?

Maybe the universe that we're in now is just some prior race's multigrain bread, which itself collapsed into a singularity, which then exploded at the "big (grain) bang." It's possible we could be living on what some prior beings considered to be a mere speck of bulghar wheat.

I think that must be the truth...I feel it in every grain of my existence.

spring break part two, or, stranger in a strange land

While I fully intended to spend all of spring break either sleeping, writing, or reading (okay, also drinking), I got called back into the world of composition, somewhere I wasn't really planning on venturing. I wanted to have a whole week where I didn't think of school at all, where the thought of student writing never crossed my mind. Of course, it didn't work out that way.

The week before break, I got an e-mail from a book representative wanting to know if I was interested in attending a symposium of college composition instructors. Apparently, my boss couldn't make it, my assistant boss couldn't make it, and they somehow worked their way down to me.

It is one of the strangest elements of my life that, now that I have a full-time position, I am continually courted by book representatives. When they heard that I was on a composition textbook subcommittee, they came out of the woodwork. I have had piles of texts sent my way, I have been interviewed at length about my teaching practices, I have had reps offer to take me out to lunch on them.

College textbooks is a major business, particularly when you're getting into the realm of anthologies, which can average around $75 a book. When you throw in the fact that courses like comp are required of every single student, a company can gain a whole lot of income by convincing a department to use their text. So it's not surprising that they try to latch on to every possible lead.

It does, however, feel weird to be the beneficiary of such behavior. It fits into my fully ambiguous feelings toward my class status. On one hand, I'm very much still very low on the totem pole within this university, this department...but these reps treat me like some tyrant who can change their lives with a nod of the head.

So when they asked me to go to this symposium, I expected either a sprawling "time-share sales pitch" or a pleading "how can we make ourselves worthy of you?" day of fawning. Personally, the prospect looked as promising as a root canal...but it was a line on the vita, they were covering all expenses, and they were paying me...which is always a tempting combination, hard to resist...so I went.

The symposium was at a hotel in Livonia MI...which is, as far as I can tell, a land of strip malls, chain restaurants, and subdivisions, sort of a Edward Sissorhands setting, only outside Detroit. The only other thing I know about the area is that the area UPN channel carries these really goofy ads for some big jewelry warehouse, where every single employee gathers for the closing shot and waves in perfect unison.

The perks of the trip were, on whole, not bad. We ate at a really good chain top-end Chinese restaurant, where I had several drinks and a kickin' lamb stir-fry on them. Afterward, we went to the hotel bar, and I got several Irish whiskeys on them. I then went to my relatively nice hotel room. The free hotel breakfast was so-so, but I guess you can't win them all.

The funny thing is that when the symposium started, the book reps made it quite clear that they were not going to try to sell us anything, and they in fact didn't want us to refer to any textbook or product by name...not even if it was theirs. They were, instead, very interested in getting a "state of the art" of comp teaching from us.

So we talked about composition, the struggles we face in teaching it, our approaches, preconceptions we face, and all that. I met some really nice and interesting people, including the heads of several writing programs...so there was in fact networking.

As much as I learned about composition teachers, I realized that I am not one of them...and I do not really think like they do, for the most part. For me, the main value to the symposium was the chance to look inside their heads, see how they think, see how they view the world. I started to try to formulate how I saw these people, how they say themselves...and I realized it was a pretty big project. I'm thinking that my second big academic project might have to be a full cultural study of the world of composition instruction.

It could be a synthesis of my personal experiences/biography and the full cultural study/serious academic endeavor angle...thus, it would combine the "fun" factor of personal writing along with serious inquiry...which would make it a blast to write. It could be a good bridge between school and the mass market...which might actually give me a name in the publishing biz. Of course, it might also make me unemployable in the comp field, but it could bring me admirers from the teaching ranks.

Who knows? I might end up using a lot of space on this blog to further explore this issue. I might recycle many of these posts. I might solicit more personal stories and research tips. I will eventually find a way to use this blog for actual work instead of the avoidance of...

Now I just need to finish my first book...

post-Spring Break wrap-up 1, or, working in the coal mine

One of these days, I need to actually take a break during spring break...y'know, go to somewhere warm, drink too much, generally be hedonistic. However, when you're a "teaching" academic, any break from school is more about catching up than relaxing. While I did get caught up on sleep, I mostly worked.

The major project of spring break was to get my book revision plan done. Way back in late 2003, I submitted a sample chapter of my dissertation to a good university press, who contacted me at that year's American Studies Association conference. They liked it enough to ask for a book proposal.

So, over the next summer, I banged one out and sent it, along with the full diss manuscript, to their editors. They then asked for some changes...y'see, I wrote a proposal which addressed specifically how I would change the diss in light of them actually having read the diss. But they only read the proposal (which I can understand, being time-strapped myself)...so I had to take another stab at the proposal.

The problem was, I got side-tracked by the thrills of adjuncting. When you're teaching five classes in four disciplines at three different institutions, it's very hard to think about anything other than grading and class prep. Summer 2004, I got 1/2way through a draft. Summer 2005, I worked at the zoo. When I did have free time, it was spent mentally recuperating from the workload. I barely had/have time to stay an active thinker, let alone be a scholar...and this continues to be the case even now that I have a job...because I teach and grade so much.

(okay, I often avoid grading...mostly by writing this blog)

Every so often, I get an e-mail from the very kind, very patient editors, wondering if I'm still working on the proposal. I tell them, quite honestly, that I still care about the project and will get it knocked out as soon as I have the time, which is even the truth...but I rarely have time.

So, task one over the break was to actually get the book proposal knocked out. Reading my diss again was a very strange experience...I had to spend an awful lot of time unpacking stupidly dense language, as well as trying to get back into the same theoretical head I occupied while an ABD. It was a difficult read, and that amazed me, because I've always prided myself on not succumming to academic-speak...I guess I was fooling myself just a little.

I realized that most of my problems in the diss came from following a dissertation format. I was spelling out everything in the beginning, going through the analysis, and just dying off. There was no mystery to the writing, and my diss, as it stands, doesn't lead anywhere...which is par for the course, because you can't really treat that type of writing as an act of discovery.

The questions that the university press had mostly related to "what questions are driving this?" Instead, the diss was driven by issues rather than questions, because I couldn't write using the "and we'll work our way to the answers" format, which would've been preferable. Now that I can do that, I can actually justify the purpose/point to my project and communicate that to my reader.

Realizing all this made everything about the dissertation make sense. I know where the thing needs to go in order to be a book. I know how to get there with minimal pain. So, over spring break, I got 90% of the proposal knocked out. I've got some polish, got to add two chapter descriptions, need to make sure I'm not in academic-speak in the proposal, but it's doable. I plan to have the revision plan done by the end of this week, and I can then solicit opinions from a few friends and my kick-ass diss chair.

It has been a strange trip moving from grad student to full-time teacher, but I think I'm starting to turn it back towards "scholar"...and that feels really good.

"a has-been at a mere thirty five"

Funny enough, the subject line quote (from a Jayhawks song) has been going through my head for a large part of the day. Yes, I turn thirty five today. I'm not normally one for pontificating on such matters, and birthdays generally don't mean much, but I've been thinking about this one.

I thought thirty would be monumental, but nothing (panic, hysteria, the like) really came up. Thirty three was only notable because I could tell people I was "the age of Rolling Rock." I thought about having a 1/3rd of a century party four months after my birthday (when I hit 33 1/3rd years old), but I never got around to it.

A number of years ago, my father said that he was shooting for 70. I thought this needlessly pessimistic at the time, especially when medical science is pushing the age barrier upward. Now that I am halfway to that age myself, however, I can't help but feel a little freaked out at the thought.

What makes the "aging of Mike" all the more surreal is that I don't feel or think of age that much during my normal life. I remember talking to my old Little Caesar boss, and he told me, "Mike, I still feel like I'm in my twenties." Well, I do to...although I am much less of a moron, have more social skills (which isn't hard), and am more confident. I have no real creaks of old age, and my bones don't ache yet. I can't sleep as long as I used to, and I can't metabolize as much sugar as before, but that's about it. I still feel, mentally, like a youngster, and the only real difference is a wider body of experience to guide my actions.

I think part of my good mental age/outlook is that I'm in an occupation which requires being able to relate to those younger than myself. Granted, this does take a conscious effort. When I did pizza, I always noticed how "the kids" listened to different music than I, and at one point, I forced myself to catch up. I found out that by listening to what they did, by watching the same shows and movies, I gained a little common ground, and that made conversations easier...and this also yields positive benefits as a teacher. Plus, I had the added advantage of not being the guy who still only listens to the same stuff he did in high school.

While doing a student conference this week, though, I got the great insight that my student, although I had a trememdous amount in common with him, saw me as an "adult" as surely as he saw himself as a kid. No surprise...some of my younger students/coworkers/friends seem to want to go out of their way to make me feel old. I won't let them, however. I refuse to be defined as "old" by any young whippersnapper. But the conference suggested to me that most of what we define as "old" is defined by other people...we only get old if we play along.

What we need to do is stop using age as an excuse not to change. I only feel old when I feel stagnant. I've been specifically battling this age-stagnation combo this year by branching out...making better friends with some youngsters, listening to different new music, watching some new programs. My parents have finally got internet connected, and I couldn't be prouder...and I think it will be good for them.

Granted, I can say these things in part because I'm still in a relatively transient state. I don't own a house; drive a really beater car; am in a job that, while I like, is not a career position; and I don't have a kid...I have, in other words, avoided a lot of the markers of maturity. But I don't think that any of these things need to necessarily stop me, as long as I keep trying to change, to grow, to improve.

Change is good. Old is a state of mind that can be avoided. Life is good.

Now, I need to make plans to drink...it is, after all, my birthday!

the Mike happenings update

Next week's happenings:

Wednesday 3/1:

related birthday drinking, time and place TBA

Thursday 3/2:

Stimmels tasting: wines from weird places, cider,
and mead. Most likely drinking afterward.

Saturday 3/4:

WAR Wrestling's "March to Glory" in Lima

Sunday 3/5:

Academy Awards viewing party at The Mad Doctor's Laboratory (my place)

Yes, it's a surprisingly full social calendar for me; I'm generally used to sitting in a dark corner of our attic, curling up in the fetal position, and sucking my thumb, so this will be monumental. Let me know if you want in on the action.

beer reporting

The beer tasting last night was a success. Got two of mine and Lori's friends to go with us, and they seemed to enjoy themselves. It was also a nice break from the normal yuppie-ish crowd that the tastings seem to attract. Plus, my wife actually stayed with us instead of wandering around the store, contemplating the various varieties of mustards.

It was also nice to have another level of commentary save the standard beer snob fare. My favorite highlights: of a very nice British ale..."it kind of has an institutional scent" (on a beer I liked); of a stout..." it kind of smells like when you get home from a bar...smokey, with a hint of cigarette ash."

We then went to a local sports bar and downed a few pitchers of Labatt Blue out of plastic cups...just so we could have the baseline comparison.

Next week, they're doing a mead and cider combo or wines from weird places (such as India).

a good student quote

One of my students referred to Appleby's as "the Wal-Mart of the restaurant world.

Every so often, I just love my job.

sampling and snobbery

In Bowling Green, we have a gourmet grocery market place. On Thursdays, they have a beer and wine tasting. I'm trying really hard to make it a normal event with my friends. I really like the concept, but so far, it's mostly drawing middle-aged yuppies. We need to bring some serious drinkers there and undermine the snob potential of the whole schmeal.

Three weeks ago, they did IPAs. Me likee IPAs, and I really liked the one from the Brooklyn Brewery...so much so that I picked up a sixpack.

Two weeks ago, they did Belgian beer. I hate Belgian beer...to me, it proves why the word "Belguim" is the dirtiest word in the universe...no offense to any actual Belgians who might be reading...

Last week, they did Doppelbocks...which I just thought were gross. The only one that really did anything was the Sam Adams, and that was simply less sour than the others...some of which tasted downright vinegary. I really craved salt afterwards.

This week, they're doing Italian wines and Gold Medal beers, in honor of the Olympics. I have high hopes...and I've actually got some people tentatively agreeing to come!

I will report back.

hair today...

For whatever reason, I have noticed an increasing amount of undergraduate women with their hair pulled back into a "Pebbles" ponytail. While I can understand the desire for low maintenance, I can't really understand why someone would want a ball on the top of their hair.

Personally, I'm hoping for a comeback for the "bedhead" look...or "the claw" from my high school days.

I look like what?

My "friend" Bob (and you'll see in a minute why I put that in quote marks) came to my office to tell me that I remind him of Ted Furguson, Bud Light Daredevil...the guy who does "stunts" such as go shopping with his girlfriend or stay at work two minutes late on a Friday.

Personally, I think he's been doing student conferences too long, but I'm open to comment on this one.

For the record, I've also been told that I look like John Denver and Jay Farrar. Any others I'm missing?

10 years gone

A leaked Guns N' Roses demo is floating around online. My review: ish.

make some nnnnooooiiiizzzzeee!!!!!!

"When I grow up, I want to be a rock guitarist."

That is what I would've said if you asked me at age 15...or 18...or 21...or nowadays, for that matter. I love being a teacher, I love being a thinker/scholar (when I can find the time), but I would much rather be a guitarist any day. I'm reminded of this whenever I hear the crunch of Slobberbone, Green Day, Grand Champeen, or a slew of other bands.

This all started a long time ago. When I was in elementary school, there was a teacher who hated me. It worked, because I hated her. I refused to do any of the work or take her seriously. She reacted by sending me to the guidance counselor to be tested...to see if I needed to go into the "special" classes.

I did the IQ test and blew its doors off. The counselor suggested to my parents that (1) I enroll in the "gifted" program, and (2) I take up some kind of intellectual interest, such as learning how to play an instrument.

My dad had a violin...apparently, he was forced to learn some while a kid, and the violin belonged to his stepfather. So I learned violin. I played violin for 3 1/2 years, and technically, I got pretty good. I had a good ear (a must for an unfretted instrument) and could pick up new material pretty well. And it was a fun enough activity.

I never really got the music, however. While I could appreciate it, I couldn't really "feel" it. It showed in my playing, which was rather precise but sedate. It also showed in how little I played once we moved away from my teacher and a school system which funded music programs. Soon, the violin went into the closet.

While I never really "felt" most classical music, I grasped rock at an early age. The first real album I ever bought was AC/DC's live album If You Want Blood (You've Got It), which I bought while in fifth grade. "Let There Be Rock" clicked immediately, as did "War Pigs"...and I knew I wanted to play guitar.

I never really got the support with guitar that I did with violin. I wasn't given an instrument...rather, I had to save up money (which I did by largely skipping high school lunches) and buy my own. I chose a Chicago brand Les Paul copy, which I no longer have...my mother made me sell it when I got a better instrument. I had to buy my own accessories (strings & such). As only so much could be funded with lunch money, I eventually had to get a job.

(of course, parties and a car also played a role in my decision to find work, but that's another post)

When I started working, I got sucked in by the money. I worked a lot of hours...by my senior year, I was doing 35 hour weeks at Little Caesars. As a result, my guitar practice time went down from the pre-employment days of pretty much whenever I wasn't in school to maybe a few hours a week. Where I used to improve steadily (and rather rapidly), I moved to barely keeping from getting rusty. College cut into my playing time even more.

I also had problems getting in bands. I didn't practice enough, and whenever I would get a chance to play, it would often come after a week or two where I didn't touch my guitar...and as a result, I sucked, and everyone would just think I reeked as a player. Some friends still think I'm really mediocre because they always heard me when I was at my most out-of-practice.

When I did get auditions that I did well, the band would either be full of loonies (I will share some stories later), or the band would chug along until a key member quit, or the whole mess would disintegrate for reasons unknown. I had the worst time getting a drummer and a singer in a band at the same time. In short, I never played out, mostly because I couldn't keep a band together long enough to get a gig. This caused me to neglect the instrument even further, which kept me out of bands...it was a vicious cycle.

I moved to Ohio to do my doctoral school, and changing my environment was the biggest marker for me that drove home the fact I would never actually be a professional musician. Strangely enough, my playing got better (particularly on the acoustic) after I gave up on my dream to play professionally, which I still don't understand.

But over the last few years, I've been neglecting the guitar again. My adjuncting period kept me way too occupied to play on any normal basis. My wife, wonderful though she is, doesn't really care for my singing voice, and mindless noodling, plunking, and practice drives her batty...so I tend not to play much around her.

I have several friends who are both musicians and academics, but I can't seem to get them to play with me either. There was one or two times where I started playing with some friends, and we got a makeshift band together. We got about 15 songs down, including a really hip country version of "Shout at the Devil". I was elated, felt unbelievable, and I wanted it to continue. The singer got busy, and we couldn't schedule any more practices...and then he moved. The bass player we were trying to recruit wouldn't commit. The drummer, while still friendly to me, quit calling me and inviting me over, for reasons I've never fathomed. I have other friends who are musicians, but I've only been able to arrange one jam session...everyone claims they are too busy.

Meanwhile, my guitars sit either in their stands or in their cases. When I do actually play, I mostly use my acoustic, because I can accompany myself on vocals...plus the strings last longer...if I break out the Les Paul or Tele, I only get a few touches on the instrument before the strings die.

I've been neglecting my music again, and I don't like it...but picking up a guitar mostly just reminds me that creating music remains a solitary activity, and that's depressing...so I'm slipping back into the role of being a guy who still thinks of himself as a guitar player but no longer plays.

The times I've managed to have normal jam partners were among the happiest of my life. There's something about creating art, and doing that with other people...it's indescribable. I hope my friends who are either in bands or have been in bands in the past appreciate their connection to music. They have created art, performed it for a hungry public, and have felt the gratification of instant feedback to their artistry. People have clapped, tapped their feet, sang along, made some appreciative noise.

I have never experienced such things and probably never will. While I will always think of myself as a musician, I realize that actually being a musician will only ever be a fantasy...which is somehow unbelievably sad. It also makes me feel hollow inside, somewhat.

I think I'll make the effort to take the guitars to the shop, get them tuned up, and make an effort to play again...if only for myself, so I can be a musician again, at least a little.

it's us against the world...literally

The Guardian had an article on the US military's announced plans for future conflict strategy. You should all read this, because it's truly enlightening. Some relevant/scary quotes:

• US commanders envisage a war unlimited in time and space against global Islamist extremism. "The struggle ... may well be fought in dozens of other countries simultaneously and for many years to come," the report says.
  
• The Pentagon does not pinpoint the countries it sees as future areas of operations but they will stretch beyond the Middle East to the Horn of Africa, north Africa, central and south-east Asia and the northern Caucasus
  
• To wage the long war, the report urges Congress to grant the Pentagon and its agencies expanded permanent legal authority of the kind used in Iraq

This of course means:

1. To qoute Kafka (who keeps coming up in my life): "The best you can hope for is infinite postponement."
   
2. We're fighting everywhere except for Antarctica...and those penguins better watch out.
   
3. Law? What law?
   

Am I alone in not having heard any of this from the US press?

I need to set up my computer to play Darth Vader's theme whenever I look at news sites.

another stupid observation

The hosts of exercise videos seem to think that people are morons who can't count on our own. They also won't shut up. This probably makes them very annoying in real life. Imagine them at a bar? "And, drink, two, three, four...it feels good to drink, yes? C'mon, work out those biceps. This is power drinking...feel that burn. Now, I want you to go get our special workout bar munches and chew. C'mon, chew! Let's get four more...and three...and two...."

seating, Kafka, academics, and class...a treatise

Life never fails to suprise. Just when I think that there's no real order, rhyme, or reason, something happens that makes it clear there is an ultimate plan...unfortunately, that plan is hopelessly twisted and deranged.

When I got my full time position, I was happy for many reasons. One thing that I really was looking forward to was having my own office...a place where I can work (or, more accurately, avoid work) in privacy, that reflected my own sense of style...albeit in a more professional, sophisticated setting than normal.

I struggled to get the office the way I wanted. Me and one of the department secretaries hunted the hallway for furniture, and I found a nice blonde wood table. I got the walls painted, abandoning the typical institutional off-white for a color which a colleague says "looks like a McShamrock shake exploded"...but I think it works. After lots of hassle with physical facilities and carpentry I got proper shelving installled. The office is nicely decorated with 8x10 blowups of cool, artsy photos.

My chair, however, sucks. I've been using an office/waiting room chair, which can be comfortable for unfortunately only minutes on end. It is also way too short, completely unadjustable, and whenever I get caught in grading binges (you can tell when I'm in one by looking at the blog, because the posts get more depressive and rant-like), I begin to feel the telltale twinges of backaches and carpal tunnel.

So I started negotiations with the powers that be. After bugging our deptartment secretaries and my union rep, I went to my chair, who gave me money for a new chair...if that makes sense.

So I went to purchasing, and their cheapest chair started at over $400...which means they must be dealing with the same contractors as the defense department; unfortunately, it took about ten e-mails and a missed appointment to find this out. I went to OfficeMax, but they didn't have anything over $170...and why go cheap if someone else is footing the bill? Purchasing refered me to an office supply store...and this is where it moves from Kafka "the best you can hope for is infinite postponement"-esque to weird in a class-based "the working classes must rebel" kind of way.

The office furniture supply people were falling over themselves to take care of me. They've called four times since last Thursday. They've negotiated a fair price and have faxed a spec sheet. In their mind, I am fully a "player"...and I'm not sure if that's just because I have a company credit card or if it's because I have a business card, a title, and all that, but it's clear I'm a person of importance to them.

Maybe this is a sign that as an academic, I immediately have a certain class standing in the eyes of the outside world...possibly so...but the reality of my situation is that I really don't have that much status or importance within my world. College teachers are assumed to be a priviledged class by many, but this is usually by people who (a) assume that class=status and (b) that don't really know about the complexities of class within the academic world.

When I was teaching sociology as an adjunct, I used the internal class structure of university employees to demonstrate how class as a construct--class being related to the nature of work in this sense--operates in the world at large. Most students, it seemed, had very little idea that part-timers were basically the grunt-work laboring slobs of the academic world...more packmules than anything else. They normally thought that as teachers don't work an assembly line (which is often debatable) or physically make stuff, they must be middle class.

But within academic professionals, there is a very real class (work structure) system in operation, if we see "teaching=work." As you rise in title, you do less "teaching=work" and thus rise in class. Deans rarely if ever teach, therefore, they are much higher on the class ladder than the standard prof. Tenure track teach less and do more research (leisure work) than do Lecturers (who bust out classes and thus are assembly line workers), so tenure=middle class.

Of course, no one actually says this, and I've never really heard anyone consciously downgrade the academic underclass. Class consciousness in academics is usually unconscious on the part of those at the top end of the class scale. As someone who spent two years in adjunct hell, I certainly don't mean "packmule" as a derrogatory term, because it adequately describes how I felt while teaching five classes in four disciplines at three institutions, all in one semester.

Elsewhere, Jen asked if I was suggesting that Adjuncts have become an academic underclass...and this is spot-on. Really, outsiders to the academy wonder why us academics are always all about politics, and after really thinking about class within academic employment, I have to wonder why there aren't more politically active thinkers here...at least in terms of worker's rights.

When I got into academics, I did so because in part I wanted to avoid the petty political garbage that seemed to dominate every other job I've ever had. I understand that you will always have to deal with the powers that be, so politics are always there, but when I was at Little Caesars, I always hated people who would kiss up to the supervisor to get better shifts...which was all too common. I hated having to tell bosses what they wanted to hear in order to get ahead. Granted, for the most part, I had good superiors, but every so often, I ran into a manager who ran a pizza place because it gave him a setting in which to unleash his inner tyrant.

Academics was supposed to be a place where ideas, thinking, and merit overcame all that. But while I've had pretty good bosses and colleagues in academia and have experienced none of that kind of office politic, I realize a little more each day I work here that this place, rather than being a refuge from politics, often can act as a microcosm of politics.

I'm at the lower end of the scale, so I notice this a bit more. Those who are in positions of priviledge in the academy never really talk about these matters as real-life situations...at least, I never heard any such talk when I was getting my degree. My ideals are being disillusioned, which would be no big deal...happens to everyone...but this disillusionment always hits hardest when I've been grading for hours.

In the past, I've mentioned that "I got into this field because it was supposed to be a place where I could feel unbound by the real world and its requirements...." What I wanted was to somehow be in a situation where politics and games didn't exist. Unfortunately, I am in a situation that instead reminds me daily that I am that much more of a victim to these politics and games than ever, where my very position may limit my mobility and maximize the amount of class-based games I have to play.

I know that I have working class roots. I want to maintain those working class roots. I don't want to become an oblivious professor who doesn't realize that he's holding a position of priviledge. However, I want to do this while attaining that position of power, of privilege, where I can do that leisure work of research (which isn't really leisure at all) which makes me feel that I'm trying to balance to irreconcilable extremes.

Either I'm very weird, or the world is very weird, and I've been very oblivious to this weirdness...maybe Kafka is still the model by which I need to live. Maybe I've been monumentally naive, but I kind of doubt I was the only one still laboring under the impression that I was in an intellectual meritocracy. I wonder if I would've still gone into academics if I would've known I might get locked into a class position due to circumstances beyond my control.

I probably would've persisted in my academic dreams, though, as all other jobs suck. I'm not going back to killing rats with a nail on a broomhandle.

a holiday observation

When I was single, I thought about marketing black armbands for sale on Valentine's Day.

yet another observation

Out of all the bands that the "kids" like, My Chemical Romance is the best.

another observation

Although I've taught for years, no one has ever brought me an apple. If they did, I'd probably suspect poisoning.

brief observation

It is incredibly satisfying to hit someone repeatedly over the head
with a cookie sheet.

incommunicado and woozy

In case you're wondering, I'm suffering from a cold. I feel dizzy, lightheaded, and I am unable to concentrate on anything. I know people pay good money for drugs that make them feel just like this, but I'm not really digging it.

updates!

Just got into my office to find out that they "updated" my computer. Jeez, thanks. In the process, they lost all my bookmarks (they assumed I used IE and copied those over my Firefox bookmarks), all my backgrounds, all my Word settings (new version...yay), a few different programs. Now, instead of doing all the work I need to do, I get to correct everything they screwed up while updating my computer.

I think I'm going to leave a note on my computer telling them not to touch it without asking me first. I am very bitter now.

I feel like a Rick Springfield album

So a good friend recommended a book called This Fine Place So Far From Home that I've been reading when I get a chance. It's a collection of essays from academics from working class backgrounds, and this should really be required reading for anyone moving into upper level higher education. Plus, it's very cool! You've gotta love any academic book where the opening essay is entitled "Stupid Rich Bastards."

I'm really enjoying the read, but it's making me think not-so-uplifting thoughts about my current job, the state of my career, and the general state of university teaching as a profession. So I'm torn about how much I should really keep reading.

Here's the deal: I really am happy to be a full-time faculty. I like my department, I like the people with whom I work...and as anyone who was reading this blog last year can tell you (see my post on trying to become a security guard), I am much more at peace than when I was part-timing. I'm definitely not knocking my job security...I don't know how I survived without it. My students, for the most part, generally really try and are open to new thoughts. But this book is, in part, making me really question why I'm here.

Rather than rant primarily about my own class background (which I'm sure is a factor somewhat), I need to tell you how I've started to become hyper-aware of my class status within the University structure.

When I got my Lectureship, I noticed that the wonderful office staff seemed to know me a bit better than they did when I was adjuncting. I've noticed since then that I now know many more faculty than before, when I knew the person who hired me and my office mate. I talk to fellow lecturers in the halls. I have friends on the staff. This is definitely a step up from where I was.

It seems, however, that I've only moved from the academic underclass to the worker-bee class. I've started to notice that I really only know two tenure-track faculty, both of which are my bosses. The profs seem to hang with the other profs, while us non-tenures tend to hang together.

And who can blame us? One night last fall, when I was leaving my office after another marathon grading bout, I walked past the prof offices, and I noticed that they only taught two courses--that's 6 credit hours--while I was teaching 16 credit hours. I drifted off into deep thought, trying to focus on the glorious accomplishments I could make if I only taught two courses (in my major, even) rather than the load I carry...I felt this was better than getting violent and angry with the profs, especially since they all do seem like nice people.

I could publish. I could not only do my book revision but also do my book. I could keep up on new theory and trends. Hell, I could even start my own journal.

Really, the professors seem (from my perspective) to lead a life of luxury, of envy. I wonder how they got there. How many of the tenure-tracks in this department worked up from the non-tenure (or, even worse, the part-time) ranks? How did they do it? Everyone tells me that publication is the key to getting a job, but how does one publish while teaching 18 credit hours at three institutions? Can you even do it if you're not from a "name" program?

All I seem to do is grade and plan, plan and grade. It's worse when papers are due, but when one teaches comp classes, papers are always due.

I thought about this last night while driving home after a 12 hour grading/teaching marathon. The saddest thing about it all is that while I love teaching, I love interacting with students and helping them learn, this really isn't the main reason why I got into this career. I started grad school because I loved learning, I loved reading, I loved creating thought. And as much as I seem to procrastinate in the drafting process, I love writing...I love the sense of being involved in a big project that might make a difference to someone. It makes me feel smart...which makes me feel worthwhile and quiets the voices in my head accusing me of being a loser...or a fraud.

I am not as good of a teacher when I don't get to think. But the only time I get to read now is when I'm waiting for someone who's late to an appointment. Since I don't get a chance to read, I get very little chance to explore new ideas. I'm not a creator of knowledge anymore, and I don't really know when I will get time to get back into the game save summer break...and if the past few summers is any indication, I will then have to fight sheer semester exaustion.

In short, I feel like a working stiff. I didn't get into academics to be a working stiff. I got into this field because it was supposed to be a place where I could feel unbound by the real world and its requirements...it was supposed to be a place where I could freely think and create.

Yes, I know I'm expressing class envy, but I'm beginning to wonder how anyone is supposed to grab that mobility from academic working class into the realm where thinking is as much a part of your job as teaching. As is, there's a little part of me that says: if I wanted to feel like I was just busting out product, I could've stayed at Little Caesars. I have to be careful I never treat my students as if they were product, and I have to really fight against feeling like a working class dog. It wouldn't be doing any good to my students, and it definitely would scar me if I started believing that.

The thing is, I wonder how many of the Lecturers and Adjuncts here feel exactly the same way...it's not a healthy feeling to think yourself opressed...it has the potential to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. I know that higher education increasingly relies on non-tenure teachers, and that this is probably never going to change...but is it possible to get that upper-class academic gig if you're in the lower ranks? Does the current system allow any class mobility? Or are we stuck here?

I've been considering limiting myself to "happy" culture until things improve. However, this ranting is the only real thinking I seem to get done anymore. Can I use it to my advantage, as motivation? Or will it use me?

Is it better to think dank thoughts than to not think at all?