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9-30-02
Monday Night
Football9-27-02 VH1's Sexiest 100 Artists
9-26-02 Smarts
9-25-02 Smokers Rights
9-24-02 Breakfast
9-23-02 An Interesting Herbal Cure
9-22-02 Torture
9-19-02 Kid Rock
9-18-02 !
9-17-02 Nooners
9-16-02 Relaxation
9-15-02 Pittsburgh
9-14-02 The Cat with the Broken Meower
9-13-02 The Day is Saved!
9-11-02 Catnip
9-10-02 Fucking Please!
9-08-02 A Cruel Twist of Fate
9-04-02 Paint Your Wagon
9-03-02 Thirty
9-01-02 I know...
9-30-02 Monday Night Football
It seems to me that Monday Night Football used to be the highlight of each football week. I could bank on the fact that whatever game was played on Monday night was going to be one of the best games of the week. Not only would the games be interesting, but the announcers themselves were nearly as fun.
(Anyone
remember the tandem of Frank Gifford,
Howard Cosell,
and
Dandy Don Meredith?) Anymore, I am forced to wonder what in the hell is
going
on. Let’s talk announcers first. After the Dennis Miller Experiment failed miserably, they scrapped the entire bunch and brought in John Madden to wear the yellow jacket. [Note: God knows I love me some Dennis Miller, but, let’s face it, his material shoots a quite a bit over the heads of an audience that traditionally is more geared toward dick-jokes.] Now, I have nothing much against John Madden (that is, other than most football fans' usual opinion that he ought to have that goddamned screen-pen of his shoved up his ass), but he is getting old. He is not nearly as animated as he was even five years ago and, therefore, not nearly as entertaining. It has gotten so bad that he actually makes his booth-mate Al Michaels look, well, downright alive.
I have an idea: let’s throw Terry Bradshaw and Deion Sanders in there with them just to fuck with Madden, to get those All-Madden shorts in an All-Madden twist. Bradshaw is an obvious choice because everybody loves his Great American Traveling Hayseed Show whether he is a commentator for a pre-game football show, peddling long distance, or running side-kick to Mel Tillis in Cannonball Run. As for Deion Sanders, let me state this for the record, once and for all: I hate Deion Sanders with a passion.
There
was never a
more
over-rated player in any sport. Sure he was a great cover
corner,
but when it came to tackling someone, to throwing that tooth-loosening
hit
that corners are required to give from time to time, he was more
concerned
with fucking up his manicure. I have never seen an athlete more
concerned
with how he looked than with winning than Deion Sanders. The reason
that
I think he ought to be in the MNF booth, though, is frankly because he
is
one funny motherfucker (not to mention he respects no one.) Oh, it also
goes
without saying that he could even make even that yellow jacket look
good.
Just imagine: Bradshaw taking Madden’s screen-pen and drawing little
bumpkinisms
on the screen, Sanders’ irreverent arrogance vs. Madden’s
all-knowingness,
the abundance of tub-of-lard jokes, and Al Michael’s occasional queries
as
to whether he has died and gone to broadcast hell. With that tandem in
the
booth, it wouldn’t matter who was playing. Hell, the Bengals could play
the
Lions (neither of which have actually won a game since the advent of
foam
fingers) and people the planet over would watch.Speaking about the choices for games to be played on Monday night, the selections for the last few years have been abominable. It’s like they schedule games four or five years in advance, with the top teams from then making the most appearances. Otherwise, I cannot explain how Tampa Bay has two appearances. Let’s face it: Tampa Bay is a perennial loser, and has been since its entrance into the league. People (including my Rotten Uncle Ronnie, a degenerate Bucs fan) have been talking about their potential for years and the team has never lived up to it. Before they get their sorry asses on MNF let them prove that they should be there. I would settle for them winning just one playoff game, or hell just one game when the temperature at kick-off is less than 40°. Another MNF scheduling anathema to me is that Seattle actually has an appearance this year. The Seahawks? This is proof positive that someone is on the take. Seattle is consistently in contention with the Bengals and Lions for the What-Fucking-Sport-Do-They-Think-They-Are-Playing Award.
Granted, it is hard to predict what each team is going to when scheduling the games in the pre-season especially since the power structure shifts each and every year due to the free agency rules, but there are two solutions to this dilemma that would provide safe bets for nearly each and every MNF game:
-
There are some games played each week between bitter rivals that always end up in either fantastic games or riots. Take for instance the Redskins and Cowboys. It matters not if one team is undefeated and the other winless when they meet, the outcome is never a given. They come to play. Another example would be the Browns/Steelers rivalry. If the game is not exciting in itself, hell the fans can invariably be counted on to liven things up. Look at the AFC West. The Raiders, Chiefs, and Broncos really hate one another and try their damnedest to pound the others into putty. The same can be said for the NFC North, otherwise known as “The Black and Blue Division,” hence the name “The Black and Blue Division.” To use one of Barry’s favorite expressions, “Duh?!"
-
There are special interest games played nearly every other week where a former player takes on his old team. For example on November 3rd, the Raiders play the 49ers. Who doesn’t want to see Jerry Rice, the greatest player in football history (I brook no arguments on this matter) do well against the team that kicked him to the curb after nearly forty years of dedicated service? A self-serving example would be my Browns against the Ravens. Wouldn’t it be great to see the Browns take revenge on Art Modell, the greatest asshole in football history (I also brook no argument on this matter) after he took (stole) their beloved team and moved it to Baltimore before spending enough money to win a Super Bowl? Want further proof. All I have to say is Bills/Patriots. Drew Bledsoe vs. Patriots, the team he was instrumental in rebuilding and who incidentally kicked him to the curb when he got injured last year in favor of some frat boy. It goes without saying that they are bitter division rivals, too.
Oh, I guess I now need to mention that Cleveland lost to the Steelers this week, very much to my chagrin. (Did I mention that I hate the Steelers?) Of course, the game was played at noon on Sunday instead of on MNF. The MNF game featured the Ravens and the Broncos. [Note: The reason for this game’s selection eludes me, too. All I can figure is that they wanted to match Shannon Sharpe against his old team, the Ravens. Contrary to my above statement about special interest games this one does not apply. The Ravens may be the only team, including his own, that Sharpe is on friendly terms with.] Anyway, there was one good thing that came out of the Browns/Steelers game: there is now a quarterback controversy in Pittsburgh. Bill Cowher must have read my previous entry about the stupidity of playing Kordell at quarterback during halftime of that game. He jerked him in favor of Tommy Maddox in the fourth quarter when he started passing to the Browns defensive backs. (I want to go to the bathroom and rub one out just thinking about that.) Of course, Maddox went on to lead Pittsburgh to the victory in overtime. (Me and my big mouth.)
9-27-02 VH1’s 100 Sexiest Artists
I have some serious issues with these “100 Whateverest” lists that the music TV stations compile. Right now The Succubus and Bill are watching VH1’s 100 Sexiest Artists show. I understand and agree with how most of them got into the top twenty—like Madonna (#1), Elvis (#2), Mick Jagger (#4), Janet Jackson (#10), and Lenny Kravitz (#14)—and actually applauded for Tina Turner (#6) and Prince (#5), but I am at a loss to explain the rest of the list.
What the fuck is the deal with J-Lo coming in third? First she is an overrated actress, then she gets to be an overrated singer by dating P-Diddy, and now this. Jesus, she should be near the bottom of the list; I am thinking somewhere around 92. As a consolation, her big ass can be 93 and we can just bump David Lee Roth right off the fucking list (maybe off the planet.)
Another one I have problems with is
Britney
Spears at eighth. I mean,
please!
How fake can you get? Does she realize that the silicone in those
overrated
boobies of hers is going to melt under prolonged exposure to stage
lighting?
It is going to get to the point that they are going to have to hook
silicone
IVs up to her nipples between sets by the time she is 25. Did she make
the
list just to appease the adolescent male populace’s notion of
‘perfect’?
Just because her videos border on soft core porn, she shouldn’t be this
high
on the list. Hell, by that token, a few years ago underaged porn queen
Traci
Lords put out a techno album. Shouldn't that have shot her right past Britney.I suspected that something was amiss when my girl Mya didn’t break the top 100 and Tori Amos only hit seventy-seven, but I knew it had to be rigged when Barry White came in seventy-eighth. Seventy-eighth? Hell, his voice alone should have cracked the top five. Anyone that can turn you on talking about an Arby's roast beef sandwich is a sexy motherfucker, don't tell me he ain't.
[Side Note: The Succubus and Bill were pleased when the ones they were pulling for scored kind of high: Steven Tyler (at 21) and Gwen Stefani (at 11) respectively. When I learned that The Succubus had a thing for Steven Tyler, I figured out why she originally went out with me (nearly ten years her senior.) She is attracted to little old men.]
9-26-02 Smarts
It seems to me that if you really are intelligent, you rarely have to make it known to others. It’s like whether you are pretty or ugly; you can’t hide it. People pick up on whether you are smart or as dumb as a sack of hammers, and they usually do it pretty quickly. What really, really annoys me is when I run into someone who feels it necessary to ensure that everyone else knows they are smart. All this says to me is that they aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are and let me tell you why…
I learned at a very early age that being the smart kid was, in a lot of ways, like being the fat kid or the kid with the hair-lip. It sets you apart from your peers and opens you up to ridicule from the small-minded and jealous. Trust me on this. I know it is this way because I was one who was called names like ‘nerd’ and got into fights on the playground for blowing the testing curve for everyone else. It doesn’t get much better as you get older either. In high school, the girls won’t go out with you and the jocks still make fun of you (that is, unless they want your help with their homework.) The teachers, instead of encouraging you like they did in grade school, begin to resent you. Was it my fault that I got bored because they geared their classes so that the lowest common denominator in the room could pass? Or, was there another reason? I wonder if they could have challenged me even if they were so inclined. I suspect not. After meeting some of the education majors at this university and seeing how they approach their own class work, I am beginning to think that all they are interested in is doing just enough to be able to grab that lowest rung on the white-collar ladder: a school teacher.
[NOTE: Don’t get me wrong, there are some notable exceptions to the rule, who became teachers because they love kids and wanted to teach. My Aunt Judy is one, as is Mrs. Nancy Hill and Mrs. Anne Booth, both of whom would go to extraordinary lengths to challenge me in class. I never was in Judy’s class in grade school, but judging from the amount of time and the lengths to which I personally have seen her go to do that job correctly, it’s obvious that she is not a teacher because it was the easiest thing to major in in college.]
Is there any wonder when I got the chance to start anew at Berea College when I was eighteen, that I went crazy on drugs and alcohol trying to forever destroy the fact that I was smart? Is it any wonder that I couldn’t hold a job for more than three months after getting kicked out of Berea, considering that middle-aged fast-food managers resent intelligence in their underlings even more than school teachers? Is it any wonder I ended up in the Navy (about as blue-collar as you can get?) Is it any wonder that when my eye-glasses—the shining symbol of my nerdiness—fell into the ocean after I had been onboard the ship less than a month that I went without them for nearly a year? Is it any wonder that I became a boatswain’s mate (referred to as a deck ape for a very good reason, because they are the lowest common denominator of sailors?) Could it be because I just wanted to be like everyone else? Is there any wonder why I stayed in so much trouble with my superiors? Of all the people that I have ever met, people in the military hate having someone that they outrank that’s smarter than they are. [Note: Again, let me qualify that last statement. There were petty officers like Red, Stimpy, Mark Myers, and Andy Shaffer saw me for what I was and used me accordingly. They knew that I could handle jobs that required thought and that I also tended to become difficult when I was forced to do stupid shit. They would, whenever possible, give me (and my crew) those jobs and then keep those-with-rank-but-no-brains out of my hair.] Is there any wonder that I had to go through drug and alcohol rehab before I realized what I had to do before I could lead any sort of successful life was to become comfortable with who I was (and that meant becoming comfortable with my intelligence?)
Even in college now, things haven’t changed that much. Take that Kid Rock fellow in my Southern Lit class and the way he sighs and moans and rolls his eyes whenever I speak in class. I have also had remarks that some of my fellow students have made about me make it back to me. A prime example is a talentless young lady named Grace Owen (one of my wife’s roommates back before we got married) whose fiction I made it a point to treat with extreme kindness when responding to it. She was bitching to some of her friends about how I thought that my writing was so much better than everyone else’s. The wrong person was listening and they ended up telling me. She naturally denied it when I confronted her, but the fact that she hasn’t looked me in the eye once since then leads me to disbelieve her. I hear more than people think and feel their looks. [Note: Again, let me say that not everybody is like that. There are some who will tell me out of the blue that they like what I say in class and that they learn a lot from listening to me. That feels really good. There are folks who will cross the room to be my partner when we split up into discussion groups. Thank God, not everyone is like Amazing Grace or Kid Rock.]
I don’t ask for that shit. Granted, I am a little cocky about my ability (especially after that award last year), but I try to not let that show. I make it a point not to abuse anyone with what I know or point out what they don’t. I don’t go into class with the intention of showing anyone up. I don’t answer questions in class just to show that I know the answer. All that does is interfere with other students learning the material. For example, in my Literature of the South class and in the first American Lit Survey with Dr. Neeper I hold back and give everyone else a chance. If they can’t answer the question, I will give it a stab. All I want to do is make the most of my time here and learn as much as I can in each and every class. If I have a question I am going to ask it. If I have an idea I am going to state it and see what the professor and the class thinks of it.
So, when I see a person like the fuck-wit in my Advanced Expository Writing class (the albino philosophy major that wears the muscle-Ts, carries the briefcase, and has a holster for his cell phone who inspired this diatribe) who just lo-oves to show off how smart he is (by using as many 50-cent words as he can in every sentence that comes out of his pie-hole) I have a real good idea of how bright he actually is. Only those who aren’t that bright put on airs about being smarter than they are, because they just don’t fucking know.
Of course, it goes without saying that I would rather be smart than dumb. I might bitch about it, but I can't imagine what those poor fuckers go through on a daily basis. It would really suck to be stupid.
9-25-02 Smokers Rights
I am a smoker, and a very considerate one at that. I bend over backwards in order to avoid infringing on the rights of non-smokers. I don’t smoke in their houses, apartments, or cars. I don’t smoke in public buildings.
I’ll
go outside into rain storms or freezing weather, just to keep that
nasty-wasty
second-hand smoke from them, and I always dispose of my butts
properly:
in a butt can. (Hell, on occasion, I’ve even been known to eat
a cigarette butt
just to avoid forcing a non-smoker to have to look at an unsightly
mess.)
Even when riding in my own car, I will roll down the windows when
traveling
with a non-smoker. You have to admit I do more than my part at not
oppressing
the non-smoker.Let me ask you a question, now that you know this: why do these non-smokers that I am so considerate of, continue to harass me about my own smoking? It’s not like I am always underfoot, hanging out outside their health spas or gyms saying things like, “Psst! Hey mister, you want a Camel. Come on everybody’s doing’ it. Be cool like me.” No, they have to actively hunt me down, often delving deep into a smoking area and subsequently braving that self-same smoke about which they plan to bitch and whine.
And it’s always the same whining, too. Invariably the first words aimed at a smoker that fall from a non-smoker’s mouth like so many droppings from a pigeon’s ass, are, “Did you know smoking causes…” You can fill in the blank from there: cancer, emphysema, bad breath, impotency, birth defects, brain tumors, hair loss, ingrown toe-nails, high interest rates, and on, and on, and on. There is one thing that smoking does not cause though, and let’s set the record straight on that matter once and for fucking all: Smoking does not cause stupidity. Don’t fool yourself. We know all about the evils of smoking, but we, frankly, do not care.
I, for
one,
am getting really tired of this harassment, and for those of you who
share
my sentiments I have compiled this selection of witty and snappy
responses
to the non-smokers’, Did-you-knows (this is so you won’t have to rap
them
in the mouth with a rolled-up newspaper like an errant puppy):
-
“Really? You have got to be kidding. I had no idea. All this time I thought they had Robitussin in them. No wonder my cough isn’t going away.”
-
“Ooh, I like this game! Since you are the Surgeon General, I’ll be the president. And, you’re fucking fired!”
-
“Ah, I see that you are the Native American I have been hearing so much about lately.Your name is Fucks-with-others, isn’t it?”
-
"Hey, can you be my mom this weekend, too? I need some laundry done.”
-
"Well, pork chops and banana splits lead to heart attacks, but you obviously aren’t cutting back."
Of course,
I find that flicking a cigarette butt at their head also works
wonders.
WARNING TO THOSE WHO JUST CAN’T MIND THEIR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS: People
have
repeatedly commented on my accuracy.
It is now about a quarter 'til six in the morning and as far as I am concerned still the 23rd of September. I just finished my assignment for Graphic Design and haven't yet slept, so I am sure that the black circles around my eyes set off all the marker dots on my hands. I could do what most normal people would and crash for a couple hours before class—and, trust me, that idea really appeals right now—but I have a better idea. The Succubus' alarm is going to go off in a few minutes and she is going to get up to go to work. Today is her early day. She has to show up an hour early for the weekly PetSmart vet clinic meeting before they open at nine. That really makes her day a bitch. Not only does she have to drive an hour each way to and from work and put in an eleven hour day, but she has to go in early for a meeting that as often as not is pointless. She hates Tuesday's and I don't blame her. I figure that since I am already awake, I will fix her a hot breakfast before she goes. (She lo-oves fried eggs.)
I know that having two night classes plus all the hours I put in doing the reading for my three lit classes cut into the time I get to spend with her. I also know how she hates it when I crawl into bed sometime in the tiny hours of each morning, and end up just getting snuggled in before her alarm go off. Maybe by doing little things like frying these eggs and making sure that dinner is on the table when she gets in at night, I can in some way make it up to her.
9-23-02 An Interesting Herbal Cure
As I was doing some research into the herbal symbolism in Sarah Orne Jewitt’s The Country of Pointed Firs for an upcoming paper for Dr. Neeper’s American Lit Periods class, I ran across a whole cache of herbal remedies for various ailments. The following is an herbal remedy for flatulence taken from Lesley Bremness’ The Complete Book of Herbs: A Practical Guide to Growing and Using Herbs (New York: Viking, 1988):
Flatulence
Seeds of aniseed, caraway or fennel are all effective at expelling wind but even more so in combination. Infuse crushed mixed seed and drink a cup slowly 30 minutes before each meal.Just what are “griping pains of wind,” anyway? Sounds painful, though. Griping? At least it didn't say barking.
Many spice seeds help disperse wind; cloves or allspice can be chewed or infused as often as desired. Black pepper sprinkled on food removes wind. Infusions of root ginger, cardamom and coriander have pleasant aromas and relieve griping pains of wind. Star anise (Illicium verum) dispels wind and is often included with dill and fennel seed in colic preparations for young babies. Take a standard infusion three times a day.
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) relieves flatulent spasms, and a dose of ¼—½ teaspoon powdered angelica root (Angelica archangelica) will quickly expel gas from the stomach and bowel with a gentle action that is safe for children.
9-22-02 Torture
I saw a 60 Minutes commercial while watching football today. The tagline to the ad was, “Should suspected terrorists be tortured to find out what they know?
You won’t be surprised at who says
no, but you will be at
who
says yes.” Not that I am entirely opposed to
the official sanctioning
of
torture, but like Nice Guy Eddie so aptly put it in Reservoir
Dogs, “If you beat [someone] enough he'll tell ya he started
the
Chicago fire. And that don't necessarily make it fuckin’ so!” Seems
like
a no-brainer to me. Of course, you have to admit, there is a certain
bent
appeal to beating someone until they admit to starting the Chicago fire.Anyway, speaking of torture, the Browns frustrate me to no end. Don’t get me wrong, though, I am absolutely fucking ecstatic that we won, but they have got to quit playing with my emotions. I had actually changed the channel to watch the tail-end of the Bears/Saints game when it looked like yet another of the meltdowns that I have gotten so used to since the Browns came back to the league. The Titans had led for most of the game, but it was still within reach for us to win. We were only down by a touchdown and actually looked like we were going to do something when we forced them to punt the ball back to us with seven minutes left in the game. We didn’t have any timeouts left, but seven minutes is plenty of time to get the ball back down the field and tie the game up. Of course, the key to this is to not fumble the punt, which Dennis Northcutt (the ass) did inside our own ten-yard line, which led to Tennessee being up by two touchdowns with five minutes left to play. Achhh! Bernie Kosar, himself, would have changed over to the Bears game.
Luckily, though, Bill changed back over during a commercial break and we got to see not only Tim Couch march the team the length of the field for a touchdown, but a recovered on-side kick by the same Dennis Northcutt who had fumbled the punt earlier (no longer an ass), allowing Couch to take the team down the field (like the second-coming of Elway) to tie the game with eight seconds left. The Browns won on a field goal in overtime.
You see what I mean, when I say that they are playing with my emotions? Had I missed the amazing end of this game after changing the channels in frustration, I would have been more pissed at the Browns than I would had they lost. You thought that I was going to say that I could have only blamed myself, didn’t you? Well, you were wrong, weren’t you? I would have blamed the Browns for shamelessly fucking with the fans. No wonder they throw bottles and rocks at the folks on the field back in Cleveland. When Northcutt fumbled, I came within an inch of throwing a turkey sandwich at my own TV! The moral lesson to this is that happy fans rarely throw things at players (in my case turkey sandwiches at images of the players on TV.)
Two good things did come out of this game, though. (1) There won’t be a quarterback controversy in Cleveland this year. This was Tim Couch’s first game of the season due to an injury and he came in and performed exceptionally, rust and all. Before the game there was speculation that since his back-up (Kelly Holcomb) had played so well in the first two games they should just keep going with him, but since Couch threw for 300+ yards and three touchdowns (including the two monster drives at the end of the game) all that talk ought to be squashed by the time the team plane lands in Cleveland. (2) We know that William Green, our first-round draft pick and “running back of the future” is the turd in Cleveland’s collective punch bowl. Apparently he was the cream of last year’s running back crop, so now we have an idea of what an absolutely parched and shitty crop that was. He fumbled twice, before being jerked in the fourth quarter in favor of Jamel White. White is no Barry Sanders or Walter Payton, but he can at least hold onto the ball and knows which way to run. Nor does he scratch his helmet and ask “Who, me?” when Couch calls an audible. In my concerted opinion, before Green gets back in the game he needs to have his head surgically removed from his ass.
9-19-02 Kid Rock
There seems to be a new super-villain in town and is he ever in need of a comeuppance. Since I don’t know his name I will call him simply Kid Rock. With his limp, stringy hair poking out from under the full-rimmed black hat pushed to the back of his head, he smirks into our Southern Lit class each Thursday night looking every bit the epitome of his namesake, the reigning symbol of white trash everywhere.
[Note: I use that last term because coming from a family-line well sprinkled with the trash, I am allowed, although it troubles me that I feel the need to qualify it with the word white. Because as we all know, a piece of shit by any other name still smells like… well, shit (to take a bit of liberty with the Bard.) I have heard it said that there is a difference between white trash, good ol' boys, and rednecks, but regardless of how one chooses to define those terms the unstated, underlying meaning is that all three are white southerners. Don’t black southerners also have their share of trash (surly and shiftless good-for-nothings), good ol' boys (folks proud of their southern-ness in that, even though they are aware of the South’s shameful past, they still revel in the positive aspects of it like the more laid-back, slow-paced, rural-oriented, lifestyle complete with more-polite-than-direct mannerisms, extra-sugary iced tea, cicadas, humidity, and stopping in the middle of the street to pass the time of day with whoeverthey meet), and rednecks (racially-biased, homophobic, intolerant belligerents?) Methinks they do. Why do people (and apparently myself) feel the need to include the term ‘white’ on ‘trash’? That troubles me. I am going to have to think of an equally evocative, yet less racially-charged, adjective for the word trash.]
Anyway, back to Kid Rock. The first inkling I got of his mindset was when we were going over Harriet Ann Jacobs’ slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. There is one part where she encounters an escaped slave named Luke that she had known down south. The story she tells about his past, like most pre-20th Century prose, couches sexual specifics in vague terminology such that if one doesn’t want to get her meaning one isn’t forced to. As I read Luke’s story, it became obvious to me that there may have been some sexual impropriety between Luke’s male master and himself. I was attuned to catch this because having taken the Gay & Lesbian Lit class taught by Dr. Adams, I knew some of the indicators. Had I not taken that class I would have probably missed it, but that does not mean that I would’ve acted like a scalded puppy when the fact was mentioned. Since the issue hadn’t come up in class, I mentioned it myself. Kid Rock reacted by asking rather loudly and quite condescendingly of his sidekick, “Did he read the same thing as we did?”
I am rather proud of the fact that I showed restraint in not embarrassing him in front of the class by telling him that I did indeed read what he had, only obviously much better. I let it go, because had I retorted I would have sunk to his level, not to mention really disrupting the class. All I said to him was that yes, I had read the same text.
During break, Gybba and I were talking about his surly attitude in class. His most common answer to whatever question is asked of him is invariably, “I dunno,” yet he will sit and smirk to his companion about how literature, “don’t have to mean nothing.” In one aspect, he’s right; literature can be just that: a good story, a beautiful poem, etc. On the other hand, we wouldn’t have studied some of these works for as many centuries or decades as we have if there wasn't something more to them than just a good story. I heard him berating Walt Whitman, saying that “Song of Myself” was the worst thing he’d ever read. Granted everyone’s aesthetic sense is different, and so Whitman may not be Kid Rock’s cup of tea, but I have to wonder just exactly what the fuck he has been reading. (Of course, it could merely be that Kid Rock may have stumbled onto the fact that Whitman was gay and his homophobia flared up like bleacher-beaten hemorrhoids?)
[Note: Listen closely; I am going to give you pearls here. Homosexuality, contrary to what one may think, is not catchy. You can’t come down with a flaming case of the queers, by reading a poem or play by a gay man, or—God forbid!—actually meeting one. Either you are or you aren’t gay. Some argue (and in my opinion justifiably) that homosexuality is a natural disposition, but at the very least it is a preference, and as such it’s no better or worse than one’s taste in music or clothes. So if that is not the way you lean, fine. Quit fucking with those that do, though. Gay people, after all, are still people and entitled to lead their lives however they see fit free from narrow-minded commentary and criticism.]
Anyway, there is much, much worse literature than the poetry of Walt Whitman. When Gybba mentioned that she overheard this boob mention to his crony that Poe was “just some cock-sucker found dead in the street,” I figured out what was up. He is the type that is majoring in English because he loves to read Stephen King and Elmore Leonard, stuff with lots of killer clowns and gunplay. Considering his remarks about Poe and Whitman, arguably two of the five or six greatest American poets, I am forced to wonder if he isn’t in the wrong major. Don’t get me wrong, reading for entertainment is good and I don’t care what one reads for fun. I myself have read a good deal of King, Anne Rice, and Robert Jordan, but I do not harbor the misguided notion that they are anywhere close to being in the same league with the likes of Faulkner, Dickinson, Morrison, Melville, Twain, and Sexton (just to name a scant few.)
It has gotten to the point in this class that whenever I say something, I hear sighs and grunts of discontentment issuing from under Kid Rock’s hat. I will say this now: I am not going to put up with much more of it. I am very proud that I have held back to this point, but much more and I am going to embarrass him, and embarrass him badly. I don’t usually fuck with other students and show them up, but I have done it and am dangerously close to doing it again. He is going to find out that he is not the American Bad-Ass that he thinks he is. I am; all he is doing is pissing on his diploma.
9-18-02 !
Barry got back with me on the sidekick issue. Rather than the semi-colon, he would rather use the exclamation point. In his words, “First of all, it's very phallic looking and plus it looks a little bit like a flame… [besides, gay men] are always over-excited about things!” Now that I think about it, it makes sense, too. The exclamation point is, after all, the junk-yard dog of punctuation. Super-villains would not be intimidated by a semi-colon, as all he would really do is annoy them by breaking up their sentences. Whereas with the exclamation point they would get the idea that he is my enforcer, the leg-breaker of the two of us, the one that emphasizes what I say. If my English Man super powers don’t prevail, Barry could always step in and give out limps. I imagine him, a large exclamation point on the front of his multi-colored costume and armed with a shillelagh, leaping about a lot (just like exclamation points do when no one is looking.) He would have to have sound effects for his mighty bounds and shillelagh wielding, like: “BOINNNG!” “DOINNG!” “PA-TOINNG!” “TONG!”
After class today, I threw in the Gremlins DVD The Succubus and I purchased last weekend, and curled up on the couch for a nap. I was unconscious and snoring well before the obligatory Judge Reinhold moment integral to most movies of the 1980s. I napped with a vengeance from nearly three o'clock until eight, getting up only once—for a span of about fifteen minutes when The Succubus came in with Big Macs and a new hair-cut around five o’clock. (Her haircut looked really good—it is quite short now—but I suspect that there may be no better reason to have a couch nap interrupted than two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun.)
The older I get, the more appealing afternoon naps are. I remember as a child, the pitched battles between my mother or grandmother and I about my taking naps, no quarter given on either side. I usually lost, but then again, they were a lot bigger than I and often armed with fly-swatters or yard-sticks. All I had was attitude and, therefore, a frequently sore ass. When I think back on those times now, I wonder why I fought. Little did I know then how utterly phenomenal naps are.
I think I first got an inkling of their worth while in the Navy. In the Navy, sleep is a commodity to be cherished and hoarded, as sometimes it wouldn’t come in any significant amount for weeks at a time. It seemed like when it did come there was always someone coming around to wake us up so we could go stand watch on the bridge, drop an anchor, launch a small boat, or swab a deck. Taking naps, or nooners in Navy-speak, to supplement the scant amount of sleep we did get, was a well-loved and time-honored Navy tradition, the same as getting shit-hammered in the first bar off the pier was a well-loved and time-honored tradition. We made up for what we were deprived of whenever we got the chance.
When it came time to knock off for lunch we would sprint to the berthing, as the first ones there got the choicest nooner spots. According to one asshole Navy regulation, we weren’t allowed to lie on our racks if we were in uniform. Since no one wanted to waste valuable sleep time undressing to climb in our rack and redressing afterward, we opted to take nooners on the deck in between the racks. At any given time there were up to six men assigned to any aisle, racks stacked three deep on either side. The first one of those six to the berthing got the section of deck between the racks in his aisle; the other five scrounged for deck space the best they could. Unwritten Navy etiquette allowed anyone who lived in an aisle to evict those that did not when they were found taking nooners there. Those that couldn’t secure the deck in their own aisle for a nooner (or got evicted from someone else’s aisle) likely ended up packed like sardines on the deck of the berthing’s TV lounge—always a dangerous spot for a nooner, as one rarely got stepped on, randomly kicked, or smacked with doors in less heavily trafficked areas.
It was a measure of the degree of disfavor the department was in with the chain of command if nooners in the berthing were disallowed. Although the berthing was the preferred location for nooners, none of us were overly picky when it came right down to it. Sailors, soon after reporting to their first ship, learn to sleep virtually anywhere. If we couldn’t take nooners in the berthing, we would scatter to sundry places throughout the ship (the anchor windlass, boatswain’s locker, inside the boats on the boat deck, UnRep locker, etc.) If the weather was agreeable, one quite popular place was the forecastle, far enough aft not to be seen by the bridge watch-standers. There was usually a pleasant breeze blowing there and virtually no noise. My personal favorite places, though, were the two line-handling rooms back aft where, when entering or leaving port, we handled the 6” or 8” mooring lines. As often as not, those lines would stay faked out on the deck for the duration of our underway period, providing a cushy place to take a nooner.
Of course, taking a nooner on soft mooring lines paled in comparison with the deck in the berthing. Any sailor will readily admit that there is nothing more enjoyable on this planet than taking a nooner in a pitch black berthing, feet slightly elevated due to the curvature of the cold, steel deck, rocking gently back and forth with the soothing roll of the ship. I can’t explain why, but it was not rare for me to fall into a coma-like, drooling slumber that upon waking I found that I had to kick-start by brain with excessive blinking. [Note: Excessive blinking after a coma-like, drooling sleep seems to help one remember basic things—where one is, one's mother’s name, one's own name, etc.] This intense kind of nooner may be the actual reason sailors are issued ID cards.
I find that college life differs little with the life of a sailor when it comes to sleep. I often find myself deprived of the amount of sleep that my aging body demands now, just as when I was at sea. I often find myself napping whenever and wherever I can, just as when I was at sea. Unlike when I was at sea, though, I no longer have a comfy steel deck to stretch out on. Instead, I have a couch and a Gremlins DVD, but, like I say, I am not overly picky.
9-16-02 Relaxation
If I learned nothing else during my five and a half years in the Navy—specifically the month and a half in their drug and alcohol rehab program—it’s that relaxation time is crucial to my sanity. I suspect that the same is true for everyone, but I know it’s that way for me. I tend to be a very volatile, aggressive, and confrontational person under the mildest conditions, but when things get stressful passersby can virtually hear the ticking. I have mellowed a hundred-fold since getting out of the Navy, though, to the point where I wouldn’t consider myself remotely dangerous (except in extreme cases, like rush-hour traffic.)
The amount of time I need to wind down each day depends on the stress level. These days, I don’t need much at all, but back while I was in the Navy, I needed a lot. For the first year and a half of my stint I would go out after work each day and drink hard for six or seven hours to relax. Not only was this unhealthy, but it wasn’t very relaxing. I wasn’t a happy, giggling drunk, but a sullen, brooding one, which only compounded my troubles. I didn’t pick fights in bars, but rarely would I let a slight (even an alleged one) go unpunished. Suffice it to say, that I was not one to piss off and turn your back on, especially if I was shooting pool and thereby armed. (I was notorious for unscrupulously acting conciliatory until my offender started to walk away and then Braveheart-ing his ass.) Naturally, I often ended up in more trouble this way than I was drinking to forget.
Rehab cured me of the drinking, but provided little as a substitute for stress relief. I had to find that on my own. I kind of stumbled on my preferred methods of relaxation by accident. I had to find some way of filling the daily void of time I had now that I used to spend drinking, so I picked up an old pastime I had developed in childhood: reading. I knew that what I wanted to do when I got out was to come back to school and major in English, so this killed two birds with one stone. I would leave the ship every day and head, in a round-about way, to an agreeable coffee shop just off of Old Dominion University’s campus to read. I say round-about, because I would usually do the rounds of all the flea markets and thrift stores in the area first, to look through their stocks of second-hand books (which usually sold for ten cents to a dollar a piece) before heading there. It got to the point that I had, at any given time, two large cardboard boxes of books in the trunk of my car and an entire compartment of my locker on the ship filled with books.
I read voraciously, usually consuming four or five books a week, which is impressive when you consider what an abysmally slow reader I am, but if you consider the amount of time I spent at it—virtually every minute of off time I had—it is not so surprising. Since my plans were to go back to school after getting out, a lot of the books I read were classics, a word that I would define much differently now, but surprisingly not as far off the mark as one would assume. I hit John Steinbeck, Thomas Hardy, Alexander Dumas, George Orwell, and William Golding pretty hard, and as it turns out scattered the rest of my reading across the whole of the British and American Lit spectrum, with a few French, Russian, and German texts thrown in for good measure. When I would tire of reading these chunky books I would switch to something easier to digest. I abused Mario Puzo, John Irving (still one of my personal favorites,) and James Clavell, as well as several horror and sci-fi authors that I am loathe to name (again, suffice it to say that I know way more about the Star Wars universe than any person who has actually ever been laid really ought.) I would do a lot of subject reading, too, things like: Nazi Germany, serial killers, prisons, and the occult. As it turns out, I have never been in an English class here that I have not read at least one book on the reading list, sometimes as much sixty to seventy percent of the reading list. This semester’s 561 class has the least number of texts that I have previously read, that being Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson.
When we were at sea, it was commonly the case that I had much less time to read and had to find other ways of relaxing. Smoking cigarettes was, and still is, one of my favorites. It was especially effective if I could find a place on the ship where I could smoke in peace, where there was no one to distract me, where I could clear my mind and just breathe deeply. Often this led to me smoking in non-designated areas and running the risk of getting caught. My favorite place was the forecastle, the forward-most weatherdeck on the ship. My favorite time was either just before or just after sunset. I have since not found a more pleasant place on earth to smoke than leaning against one of the handrails on the forecastle (far enough aft not to be seen by the watch-standers on the bridge) at sunset, gazing out across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, or whatever body of water we were on, a cool breeze lightly spraying me with brine. Sometimes, I would even stay long enough to smoke two. Sometimes, I would go up with one or both of my best friends (Dave and Red.) Sometimes, we would talk, but as often as not we would just smoke.
There were other things I did to relax, too. One of my favorites was to shine my shoes. Our shoes had to be well-blackened in order to pass inspection, but not necessarily mirror-finish like they taught us in boot camp. I never strove for the mirror-finish that some of the more ambitious guys did. I was content with just a solid shine. The ritual of maintaining my boots was a meticulous, but mindless, one. Often I would sit in the lounge and watch TV as I shined my boots. My left hand inside a shoe, I applied the polish to one then the other with a toothbrush. I started at the toe and moved to the heel, down the right side and back up the left, using small circles to ensure that the polish got in every fold and crevice of the leather. The buffing was next: long, fast strokes of the buffing brush lightly, at first, against the boot, gradually applying more pressure as the shine started. As with the toothbrush, I moved toe to heel, right to left, angling the shoe instead of the brush so that my stride and cadence wasn’t interrupted. I could shine my shoes for hours—repeating each step over and over again—sometimes for the duration of whatever movie was playing.
Since getting out of the Navy my job has, for the most part, been to read for class, so I haven’t really needed relaxation time. Occasionally, people ask me how I can stand to read as much as I do, and I can honestly say that it relaxes me. Sometimes this is not the case (as is currently the deal with all the heavily religious texts we have been reading from the colonial period of American Lit), but hey, I still have my cigarettes and my shoe polish.
Sometimes a joint really hits the spot, too.
9-15-02 Pittsburgh
Let’s have a moment of silence to reflect on the most recent Pittsburgh Steelers loss. My crusty little Brown soul basks in the tears of Steelers fans world-wide. After all the pre-season hype about them being a shoo-in for the Super Bowl,
I am nearly weepy with joy that
they dropped the first two games of the
season. Not
only did the Patriots pound them in the season opener a week ago,
but
a Raiders team that we can actually watch aging before our very eyes
took
them to school tonight. Let us take another moment, to face the Steel
City
and smirk for all we are worth…My contractual obligation as a Browns fan to revel in the misfortune of the Steelers aside, the Steelers piss me off for other reasons. As much as I am loath to admit it, the Steelers are really loaded this year but are wasting the talent they have. Like Rhett Butler, waste always makes me angry. They have a solid team defensively, and one of the most versatile offenses I have ever seen. Unfortunately, through piss poor judgment, Bill Cowher continues to let Kordell Stewart line up under center as the quarterback. I do not doubt Kordell’s natural athletic ability, as I don’t think there is a better all-around offensive weapon in the league (with the possible exception of maybe Marshall Faulk.) He can run the ball, is a superb receiver, and is a serviceable passer, but he lacks the accuracy in passing to be a starting quarterback. If he wasn’t surrounded by quality receivers (Antoine Randal-El, Plaxico Burress, and Hines Ward) he would never complete a pass. Cowher hasn’t shown the slightest hesitation in converting quarterbacks to receivers before (Randal-El and Ward are proof of this), but for some reason he keeps vainly hoping that Kordell will live up to his media hype. A couple of years ago, he even went so far as to start the second-stringer and line Kordell up as a receiver.
Kordell came right out and said,
more or less, “I am an NFL
quarterback
and won’t play any other position.” That in itself says to me that
Kordell
is more concerned with himself and his own glory than with the welfare
of
the team. If you think that this isn’t a disastrous quality to have in
a
quarterback, read up on your Jeff George and get back to me. Pittsburg
could
have won both of the two games it has played this year if they had a
quarterback
with an accurate arm. Besides the two converted quarterbacks the
Steelers
have as receivers they have their usual compliment of back-up QBs. Why
not
start someone who can actually pass the ball, even if they are not as
flashy
as “Slash” and then utilize him to where his strengths are played to,
namely
in receiving and in trick plays. (There is definitely something to be
said
for having an entire backfield who can pass to some degree. A team’s
versatility
will skyrocket.)Of course, who am I to complain, I am a Browns fan. So, go ahead Bill Cowher, start that whining, selfish, prima donna at quarterback. I would love for you to lose every last single game.
9-14-02 The cat with the broken meower
The Succubus is amazing, truly amazing. She is unlike any other woman that I ever had a relationship with and not a day goes by that I do not end up in awe of her. Methinks, there are two primary reasons for this. First off, she is not clinically insane which is a vast departure from my past girlfriends. I mean, if women were ice cream, I think I have tasted every freezer-burnt or melted flavor in Ben & Jerry’s walk-in. More important than that, though, is that she can put up with me. Those of you who know me might snidely suspect that I likely played a key role in mentally destabilizing those women and, well, I have to admit that I’ve wondered the same thing at times. I know better now, though. After being married to The Succubus for just over nine months I can safely say that it is not me. I finally know what it is like to be in a relationship with a sane woman! And a sane woman with a sense of humor! I do not have the words to express my joy.
What has inspired me to write this, you may ask? Well, let me preface the subject with a mild warning. What I am going to tell you falls under the jurisdiction of the more intimate nature of our relationship. I am not going to go into graphic detail or anything (because that is tasteless, uncalled for, and frankly nobody’s business but mine and The Succubus’) but I am going to be talking about things of a sexual nature, so consider yourself warned.
Anyway, last night as we were gearing up to get down to bidness, it occurred to me that a really nifty thing to do would be to give myself a round of pre-bidness applause by clapping her boobies together. So that is what I did. With any other woman, do you realize what a thoroughly horrible idea that would have been? At best, it would make the woman laugh, and as we all know laughter is rarely acceptable in that type of situation. As a matter of fact, it is commonly considered the most effective contraceptive known to man (yes, gender-specificity is called for here.) Bill and I have discussed this phenomenon at length. It seems to us that sex is actually supposed to be fun and that fun usually includes some manner of laughter. Or, one would think so anyway, right? Oh, how wrong you are grasshopper. There is no surer way to bring the getting-laid process to a screeching halt than to let out the slightest snicker (with the possible exception of using the wrong name which is definitely the antithesis of fun.)
Needless to say, I learned the evils of laughter the hard way very early in my sexual career. I learned it well, too. To give you an example of how well I learned it, I will relate something that occurred when I was dating the nuttiest bitch on the planet just prior to The Succubus. Her name was Angie and I dated her off and on for more than a decade (from the middle of high school until my first year at Morehead.) To get an idea of how crazy she was I will revert to my ice cream metaphor. She was all 31 of Baskin Robbins’ fucked-up flavors scooped into one crumbling sugar cone with no bottom and leaking rapidly, me without a napkin. Superimpose a combination of neuroticism and bi-polar disorder mingled with enough meds to tranq Conan over a background of They Might Be Giants tunes. Succinctly put, bitch was fucking nuts. I am sure that you can imagine the delicacy involved on my part during sexual encounters. Not only was not laughing involved, but also a fair amount of mind reading on my part. Being the bright boy that I supposedly am, I should have figured out that things were not what they seemed the first time she had a panic attack during sex, but as you have seen from the catnip episode sometimes I just miss the fucking boat.
Anyway, one Sunday afternoon I was on my way back to Morehead from visiting the folks and stopped off in Lexington to see Angie. There was the usual hour or so of me trying to decipher what kind of visit this was going to be. Violent lasagna-tossing arguments had ensued in the previous weeks because (A) if we did have sex, the only reason I stopped by was to get a shot of ass, and (B) if we didn’t have sex, I wasn’t attracted to her any more. (Let me tell you, Yossarian didn’t have shit on me, not the first fucking thing.) Anyway, since Old Blue Eyes was crooning out of the CD player, I took it to be a Conjugal Sunday. As it turned out, I guessed correctly and we ended up in the bedroom. (I felt like Indiana Jones after choosing the real grail and his flesh didn’t melt off his body.)
Had I thought about it at the time, I would have known that it was a bad idea to leave the bedroom door open. It was rather warm, though, and by leaving the door cracked a bit there was a nice breeze between in the room from the open window, besides we could hear Frankie better. Anyway, we had been in the bedroom for nearly an hour doing our thing, and I was almost to the point of thinking that she was never going to orgasm. Sometimes getting her to achieve orgasm was a downright tedious process, requiring intense stamina on my part and force of will on hers. I was ready (actually well past ready,) so I was looking at the wall and thinking about baseball, Nightline, and homework–anything to keep my mind off what I was doing so I could last. Her eyes were clinched. She had a death grip on my arm with one hand and the edge of the nightstand with the other. I could tell that she was finally in her zone, damn near there, when I heard her cat meow just outside the door.
Her cat’s name was Phydeaux (pronounced Fido) because he acted more like a dog than a cat. Phydeaux's meower was broken, so that when he meowed it came out one of two ways, either “EEEooowww” or just “Owwwwww.” I thought to myself: Please, God, not now. I quickly looked down to see if she had heard. Thankfully, she was still in her zone. Phew! Without breaking stride, I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the door open a couple inches wider. Again I supplicated God: Please, just another couple minutes. We are almost there. No such luck because the next thing I knew the cat was on the same nightstand that she was shaking, looking at us. I looked down and saw that she was still going strong; we were so-oo close. My eyes locked with the cat’s. Mine saying: Don’t you fucking dare! His: Whatcha doin’?
Phydeaux licked himself contentedly, watching us all the time. I had almost decided that he was going to be content with a little harmless voyeurism when, “Owwwwww!” Her eyes slammed open like wind-blown shudders, and upon seeing Phydeaux she lashed out with her hand in a mighty KEEEE-YAAAAH. The poor cat flew screaming across the room, caromed off the wall and landed in the laundry hamper. So conditioned was I to the evils of laughter during sex, I clenched my eyes and turned my head toward the wall, nearly biting through my lower lip to keep from cackling. I guess I should have went ahead and laughed and got some consolation because it was over. I ended up driving back to Morehead erect and tasting blood the entire way.
Let me say it one more time. I am in awe of and so thankful for my The Succubus. Not only is she sane, but she also knows how to laugh at inappropriate times. That in itself deserves a round of applause.
[2-10-05 Note: Oops, looks like I fucked this one up. The Succubus wasn't sane after all, she was just sneakier than most. As it turns out, she is bipolar with and refuses to deal with it in a responsible adult manner through medication and therapy. How did I not notice this? She has different personas that she switches between so she can show people only what she wants them to see. I didn't see the real The Succubus until about six months after we were married.]
9-13-02 The day is saved!
I got into an email discussion with Dr. Adams today about the whole English Man and Semicolon thing. I was thinking that Barry could be my sidekick Semicolon. The world needs more gay superheroes (as super-villains are notoriously homophobic.) Dr. Adams mentioned that his name could be misconstrued as a gay jibe and thought that I may need to rethink it unless I was planning on hate-criming him again. [Note: Last fall in our Gay & Lesbian Lit class I would occasionally toss my ink pen at Barry and call it a hate crime.] I kind of saw the name as empowering him. I can imagine him in his rainbow-colored cape and ruby slippers announcing: "Semicolon powers activate! Form of a 14” black rubber horse cock!" or "Flame on!" I guess I will have to ask Barry. He will know best.
Superheroes need and thrive on missions! So, armed with my faithful dictionary and highlighter, our superhero prepares himself to wage vigorous battle against the forces of villainy and naughtiness. Hark! What’s that I hear? Could it be the cries of the oppressed? Up, up, and away!
Last night in my Literature of the South class, we were assigned a reading of Edgar Allan Poe (the short story The Fall of the House of Usher and the essay “The Philosophy of Composition.”) I knew that the south had always tried to claim Poe as their own, but last night was the first time that I had had the impetus to look into the matter for myself. I did the reading and could really see how one could make the argument that The Fall of the House of Usher could be seen as an allegoric representation of the decay of the Old South and the inevitability of what was to come. The allusions to the planter class and their values were rife throughout the piece. I must have highlighted twenty or thirty instances throughout the piece, but I am still not sold on the notion that that was what Poe intended. I tend to think that the reason we can read it as an allegory is because we want to impose it, in retrospect, on what was going on from Poe’s time to the end of the Civil War. Had he published this piece two years ago, literary critics would have been screaming that it represented the Bush/Gore debacle (they are going to tear the whole house down!)
Don’t get me wrong, though; I am not knocking the allegoric reading. Those who read it that way make some excellent points. What those who read it that way though aren’t realizing is that part of the beauty of Poe is that his writing is so layered with symbolism that it can be read however one wants. I think what would sell me on this reading is some further support from Poe, himself. As Dr. Neeper assures us biographical inquiry is a tricky proposition at best, but in this case I think it might be needed. Did Poe ever express an opinion on political matters one way or the other? He did work as an editor for several magazines throughout his life, which would have been the perfect forum for it. Was there any political commentary couched in his other creative pieces? I can’t think of any, but perhaps I am overlooking some. It seems to me, though, that Poe was more interested in the nature of art and in producing quality art himself while at the same time trying to earn enough money from it to feed his family. I don’t think this is a question that has one definitive answer, but I am not sold on the notion that he was making political commentary.
Of course, this argument begs an answer to a more important question: why is Poe being taught in a class on Southern Literature? He publicly claimed that he was a Virginian, as he spent a considerable amount of his life in Richmond. He did attend the University of Virginia (for a year.) Hell, he married his 14-year old cousin Virginia. Of course, most of his work came out of the years when he was living outside of the south: in Boston (ironically, his birth place,) New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore (the latter located in a future border state.) His writings, themselves, give mixed signals about his southernness. At times, they seem to illustrate those qualities that we have come to identify with Southern writing (emphasis on the past, a focus on beauty—especially in the form of women, inner struggle, the notion of the grotesque), but at other times seems to fly in the face of those qualities (lack of a strong sense of place and disregard of all racial issues, politicism, and social/religious values).
Again this is another question that really has no answer. Personally, when I teach this type of introductory class to Southern Lit, I don’t think I will present him as a Southern writer per se, but I do think he needs to be mentioned as an influence on future generations of southern writers. Tell me that William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and the like did not get inspiration from his representations of the grotesque. I do think that the question about the possible allegorical nature of The Fall of the House of Usher is important enough not to be ignored in such a class. I think that the way I would present Poe to the class is the same way I would present the border states in the Civil War (strong cases can be made for him falling either way) and as a strong influence on future generations of southern writers.
I do know how I would present him in a class on American Lit, though. I was thoroughly enraptured by his “The Philosophy of Composition” in which he breaks down the process of how he went about writing his masterpiece “The Raven.” He provides us with a formula for writing poetry that is vague enough to be applied to any kind of poetry, while at the same time specific enough to be useful. Dr. Colburn proved to me (in the survey over the first half of British Literature) the usefulness of writing imitations of author’s works. By imitating a work and getting inside the heads of an author, we come to understand them that much better. What would be a more useful tool to imitate Poe—or arguably any other poet—than “The Philosophy of Composition”? Assuming that the students could effectively analyze the poetic devices that are at work in a particular poem, why couldn’t they use Poe’s method of creating an imitation of it, themselves? Granted, this would be kind of useless in upper level classes, but in the introductory surveys it could be a powerful tool.
My job here is done! The day is saved! Up, up, and away!
9-11-02 Catnip
Dr.
Adams emailed me a copy
of
the letter of recommendation that I asked her to write for my grad
school
application packet. After reading it, I felt like I
needed a cape and a
sidekick.
(Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s English Man
and
his faithful sidekick Semicolon! The
day is saved!)Oh, and contrary to what one may read on the Internet, one cannot get high from smoking catnip. One would think that Morehead’s reigning Outstanding Undergraduate Student in English really should have figured that out when he saw that it only cost $3 an ounce at Wal-Mart. Think again. It was not a total loss, though. There is a family of strays that live under Butler Hall. We have been watching them act like a bunch of drunken pagans at a Beltane festival for the last hour, which is infinitely better than TV.
9-10-02 Fucking please!
Morehead pisses me off. Not the school specifically, but it definitely contributes to my agitation. What I am talking about is the town. As we were going to Kroger today I saw the MAT van tooling down Main Street. For those of you who don't know what MAT stands for: Morehead Area Transit. Don't you think that a town this size could come up with something more important to spend their money on than a MAT van, like widening some roads so that we don't have to drive on the sidewalks when turning onto them (i.e. 2nd Street there next to the science building?)
Of course, we also have a monolithic overpass for the children to cross the road after school. What is the matter with dispatching a couple cops to handle the street crossing situation? It has worked in my hometown—more or less the same size as Morehead—for the last 50 years. I mean, it isn't like we can't spare the police personnel. Morehead has a higher police to civilian ratio of anywhere in the fucking solar system what with the state police, town police, county sheriff, and the campus police. I mean, Jesus, I bet I can take one of the kiwi from the table and throw it out my door blindfolded and hit a cop 3 out of 5 times (and that is tough considering the kiwi's natural resistance to being thrown.) Naturally, they all have more important things to do, like staking out all the unnecessary stop signs around campus and hanging out at the Dixie Grill.
Speaking of the Dixie, what kind of college town does not have an all-night eatery of some sort? This truly baffles me. Until I got to Morehead, I had never been to a town containing a college that didn't have at least one all-night diner (even if it was a Shoney's or Denny's.) If we want a late night breakfast or burger we have to drive thirty miles down the interstate. WTF, over?
The movie theatre pisses me off, too. One screen? One screen? It's not like I am asking for one of those new completely chrome and neon Stupendi-plexes complete with 45 screens, reclining seats with foot rests, cappucineries, and piss-boys to fetch you jeroboams of hot buttery popcorn. Is a mere four screens too much to ask, so that if I don't want to watch Blue Crush (a surfer movie with arguably less plotline than a Who's Line Is It, Anyway? commercial) I can choose something else? And what the fuck is the deal with keeping a movie for three consecutive weeks? I mean, Jesus, how many fucking times can one watch Spiderman even in a town with nothing to do but listen to the acorns falling off the trees? If they are going to keep a movie for three weeks at least choose something that appeals to other types of movie watchers than just the rednecks who for entertainment clot themselves in the street across from Arby's.
Speaking of the Arby's crowd, why don't our massive police force break that shit up, and the cruising, too. I mean all they offer our community is catcalls, date rape, and nigger jokes. I am sick and fucking tired of getting buzzed by the good ole boys doing 45 MPH, one-wheel U-turns in their pick-em-up trucks blaring whatever song is on Morehead's only radio station while I am filling my car with gas. [Note to Morons: you don't need to blare your radio here in Morehead, as everyone who is listening to the radio is listening to exactly what you are because, due to our mountainous clime, we are located in a radio-transmission black hole.]
Oh, all of this goes without mentioning the fuck-wit who always bags my groceries at Kroger. Today he put six cans of vegetables, two cans of soup, and a big-ass jar of applesauce in one of those flimsy plastic bags. In the next he put a cooking whisk. Yet again, let me ask: what the fuck? Who knows, maybe he had his mind on more important matters like picking up his 14-year old half-sister out in front of Arby's after work so they could go watch Blue Crush and then retire to his Bronco for a little heavy petting.
Jesus, this town makes my head hurt and my ass itch.
9-08-02 A Cruel Twist of Fate
Is it a cruel twist of fate that some people are born Browns fans, or what? I am fuming over their loss to the Chiefs today with no time remaining on the clock. Leave it to the Browns to lose a game with no time left! Get this: it was a series of two taunting penalties that gave the game away. We couldn’t just win gracefully, could we? No, we had to fuck with the other team.
First, Chris Gardocki, the punter who was holding the ball for the game-winning field goal, earned the Browns a penalty for verbally taunting the defensive linemen who failed to block the kick. There is something fundamentally wrong with a 120-pound punter taunting a pack of snarling 300-lb. rhinos. That is just plumb stupid. I am amazed that they didn’t just mash him up into little bitty kicker meatballs right there on the 35-yard line. This goes without saying, but that guy obviously didn’t go to college for the fucking education.
To make matters even worse, as time ran out (thirty seconds later) a Cleveland lineman who thought the play was over got excited and pitched his helmet down the field during his idiomatic we-just-won-the-game Dance-of-Joy. Unfortunately for him (and us) the play wasn’t over and that act of celebration became a big-time penalty, the result of which allowed Kansas City to kick the real game-winning field goal with no time left on the clock.
WTF, over?
9-04-02 Paint Your Wagon
I did my good deed for the day today. Dominic asked me to get him a Mormon Bible from the elders, because he didn't want to actually talk to them. After we got out of class I tracked them down to the Bell Tower and procured one for him. One of the elders asked me why people were so afraid of them, to which I asked him if he bit. When he said no, I told him that I hadn’t the foggiest.
I also gave them Dominic's name (complete with correct spelling) and told them where he lived. I am still chuckling about that. Its okay, though, Dominic knows that I only did it because I love him. Besides, being visited by Mormons is considerably better than the IRS.
9-03-02 Thirty
Today is my parents' thirty-first wedding anniversary, which is yet another reminder that I am fastly approaching thirty myself (under five months now.) I have never been so acutely aware of my age until recently. It all started over the summer when I noticed the first gray hair in my beard. I have had gray at my temples and through the top since I was twenty-two, but the first one in the beard kind of bothered me.
Physically, I don't feel old. I have better stamina than most of the people I know. I can go without sleep exceptionally well. Yesterday, I held my own on the softball field as well as anyone out there even though I am not as quick as I was at twenty (but then again we ARE talking about the Honors Program team, which at times resembles the sporting teams featured in Revenge of the Nerds.) Of course, I am sure that Pete Sampras (who just turned 31) doesn't feel old either, even though they have been saying that he is over the hill for nearly two years now.
It is just that turning thirty plays on the mind, like no birthday has before. Now, it seems that everywhere I go the number thirty stands out to me (in mile markers on the highway, such-and-such ball player hit his thirtieth homerun of the season, etc.) Today's daily reminder came in art class when Deeno (Dr. Golding) asked if certain songs brought back memories—say a song from 1979? I looked around the class and realized that in all likelihood he and I were the only ones alive in 1979.
9-01-02 I know…
Being an adult means that it's my house and I can draw on the bananas with a Sharpie if I want. Most people think it's all work and getting up early and paying the bills, but I know...
I know.