Race Matters

So PTB drops knowledge on the White Sox demographic controversy, which is a controversy only in the sense that “what you see is what you get” is a syllogism. There is something strange in seeing the cameras pan across a see of white White Sox fans, but there is also something familiar. My memories of going to U.S. Sell-u-late Field are of a vague egalitarianism between people in the outfield, such that shiny-faced college kids and white collar whites and blacks sort of agreed to leave each other alone. Now, I suspect that it depended on where one sat and how much you had to drink, which itself depends on how much money you can blow on a baseball game. Seeing sameness on the television screen has to be about money as much as anything, eh? But this is a boring argument, and this is not, as the say, the new cleavage.

Am I wrong, or does Gabriel Garcia Marquez have a new novel coming out entitled: Memories of My Melancholy Whores?

My race matters – I have a lot of kids in class who identify with Jay Z and the notion of hustling. They are poor, and many come from broken homes. It’s interesting (God it seems like anyone who uses interesting as an adjective anymore should be shot, but “perplexing” is ruled out and I wont waste more of your time on this subject) to notice the little things they’ve appropriated from urban black culture, seeing as this is, uh, rural rez culture. But it’s a strange amalgamated appropriation, from all kinds of different cultural moments making for like a pastiche of Indian thuggitude. Shit like complicated handshakes, being all Slim-with-tilted-brim, wearing the flannels with the top button buttoned but everything else hanging out, wearing old Biggie t-shirts, G-unit label sweatshirts, the baggy ass pants with white adidas, tattoos on the hands and neck: nothing that would be completely unexpected or out of place in a city, but definitely assembled from different eras and traditions. I guess their style (and it’s almost exclusively boys) is just an echo of what they see on MTV, and in making it their own, a certain kind of transformative effect comes out.

Anyway. Get in where you fit in.

Friends, colleagues, and Texas patriots:

Hi, I'm your Congressman, Tom DeLay. You may recognize me from previous campaigns, when I visited your country club and became fixated with your surgically-altered wife and/or daughter. I am writing to ask for assistance as I run for re-election. I have a plan. I will roll back taxes, keep a tight lid on federal spending, have Justices Souter Stevens and Kennedy tarred and feathered on K Street, and surgically pin my lips back in the smile position.

You see, you don't make the move from owning your own pest control business, to becoming the sleaziest powerful person in a town full of sleazy of powerful people, unless you have a good view of the writing on the wall. The writing on the wall at present essentially says: Tom, you're fucked.
But with your help, I can either knock down that wall or use a good touch of metaphorical white out, and write something else up there. The future, in other words, can still be ours.

Please don't get too worked up over this. I've broken bigger laws than this one, and an indictment is only as incriminating as an organization makes it. Fellas, loose lips sink ships. We all know that. Still, I'd like to remind anyone who knows anything about what I did or not do in my relations with the Texas State Republican Party officials to keep your lips tighter than a bull's ass in fly season.

Don't worry about ole Tom. Just take a look at how smoothly I handled this guy. I know, I know - it was FOX - it was like a batting practice homerun. But I have been out battlin', and my rhetoricking has made a difference. People will believe what I say, even if I don't, because I speak language they can understand. As I told that commie fag Wolf Blitzer:

This is just the worst travesty of justice I have seen. Everybody says you can indict a ham sandwich with a grand jury. This is a ham sandwich indictment without the ham.

Fellas, I intend to bring the ham next election, and the steak and the pork chops too. If you want to have a chance at having any of it, I expect to see your continued, unmitigated support.


In partnership,


Tom DeLay

Yesterday Redux

1) Snow day specifics as a buildup to baseball finality
Went to Andres’ house, built a snowman, made a snow angel, watched Brad feed the pigs and the chickens, went to the school to put papers in folders, came upon an opportunity to fly to Chicago sometime in the next two months but soon found that opportunity attractive in the abstract but unfeasible in the concrete, sent out letters to Julie and Sara, came home, read some Wendell Berry and Randall Jarrell and ended the session with a few poems from this anthology edited by Milosz someone gave me for my birthday, went back to the Andres’ house for Brad’s birthday dinner, drank 3 beers, ate a buffalo burger, made disinterested small talk about the exorbitant unrealistic demands Sister Bernadette the resident nun is making on the school community with a woman who weighs at least 300 lbs., watched a Disney show about vampires with a half dozen young Catholic teacher progeny, and finally talked one of the Andres kids into switching it to ESPN to check the Sox-Sox score. Whites were up on Reds 5-4 in the 6th (whites versus reds, as far as historical analogies go, seems like a premonition – remember that I live amongst the colonized “domestic dependent” tribes, and they seem to have taken the worse end of the deal in all regards). Soon enough, the young child turned from baseball back to the vampire movie, thus forcing me to take leave of the party in an awkward note, right after the cake was cut.
I felt no need to apologize. This is October, after all, and baseball is a religion that demands as much metaphysical commitment as any silly public prostration in front of a school assembly. A month and a half into this particular employment situation, I know enough backstory to feel contemptuous of adults who bitch about church doctrine but only in whispers. If you have a problem about a matter that you truly believe is more than life-or-death, don’t mince words. I am not digging on Catholicism as such, I am digging on officeplace politics disguised as theological differences.
So after my departure from the birthday party, I went to the nearest store, purchased a six-pack, and drove away into the snowy night fervently searching for an AM station that carried the game.
Three minutes out of town, I narrowly avoided two deer, which resulted in a long, deep sigh of relief. Five minutes after I almost hit one or both of that deer pair, I found what I was looking for on 560 AM KKWK: the Game. Not that I could understand what was happening. A transcript of the broadcast, from my car, looks like this:

. . . .Damon . . . . 5-4 White Sox . . . . . 23 year old pitcher [is this a reference to the Red Sox closer? I surmise, Yes]. . . . . . Ninth Inning . . . .(HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsss sound) . . . Damon takes his stance . . . (long interval of static, and cursing from me, another deer narrowly avoided) Damon, takes . . . 3 balls 1 strike . . . . . . Damon, weak popup . . . . Pierzynski (spelling? I know, I know, he played for the Twins, my other team – I am one of those whorish fans that by geographical ambiguity have two teams, and in my case I am even more deplorable because both teams play in the same division) catches it in foul territory . . . . . Renteria, 2-4 tonight with a double and a single . . . . Graffanino . . . . . (longer interval of static) . . . . . so the White Sox come away from tonight with a 2-0 lead in the series.

So, yes – I let out a whoop. If you let a whoop on a semi-snowy, unpopulated highway in Rosebud County, MT, five miles from the town, does anyone or anything hear it? Yes, a male mule deer AKA Muley buck, with an eight point typical rack (four tines on the right side, four on the left – “atypical” rack would be an even number of tines on one side, an odd number on the other) heard me, because in mid-whoop I came to a screeching stop and stared it down, not ten feet away from my car. I do believe that the whoop transfixed the animal, as it stood in front of my headlights for a good ten seconds, staring back at the whoop’s source. I would like to posit that this deer and I saw eye to eye on the relative merits of a White Sox victory, but that is pure speculation.

2) Hey all you baseball purists, chastise my whorishness

When I moved to Chicago, I took the White Sox as my local team of choice. I had never had a local team of choice. The Twins were my default, and I remain loyal to them, for many reasons. It’s hard not to like a team that succeeds because they do things right, and then lose many elements of their successful team because they cannot afford to retain them. On the flipside, it’s hard to like any team, no matter its chemistry or charisma, that plays in the Metrodome. And, because I had Chicago papers in front of me when I read papers, and Chicago baseball in front of me on the televisions in bars that I frequented, I came to know more, and have more intricate opinions, about the White Sox than I did the Twins. Yet when the Twins played the Yankees a few years back in the playoffs, I was on a mower, grooming a golf course, back amongst Twins fans, and my heart palpated with the ebbs and flows of a series that was doomed to be depressing from the start, even though the Twins won the first game.
My attempt to have it both ways, rooting for both the Twins and the Sox, has drawn the ire of many baseball fans with whom I have consorted. The basic argument against me is pretty straightforward: cheering for two teams in the same division is like being an agnostic who holds out hope that heaven will be his final home. And I admit that there is a certain screwy ambivalence in my particular baseball fanhood. It would be one thing if one team made its home in the National League, and the other in the American League. But my particular baseball fetish incriminates me. I admit it. Holding out for both teams is as impossible as holding out hope for both sides of an issue that can only house one conviction. You can’t be pro-choice and pro-life – you can, of course, hold no opinion on the issue, but at this point holding no opinions on baseball lacks viability. So, GO WHITE SOX! NOTE: if the White Sox lose, I will have no hesitation in rooting for the Red Sox against either the Yankees or the Angels. If that makes me a crack-addict whore, so be it. Does it make me a crack-addict whore?

Snow Day

1) Why I am here

Six inches of snow = no school, but also no electricity at home because snow-filled trees toppled and hit powerlines that lead to my apartment. So I am here, in the building of employment, elevating myself over the wall of the present to see which Sox team will win tonight. I make no predictions.

I spent the morning making a snowman at another teacher's house, with four kids under 11 and a massive yellow lab to direct my labor. The obvious necessity of using prophylactics aside, being around young kids is nice every so often. I have no tricks or methods of being kid-friendly.

2)
Notes on Response to Culture-lessness and Its Discontents

Of what do you make a world? Songs on the radio, knitting, books on military strategy, albums by bands like Killdozer, extremist politics or just plain old politics, journalism, news, the Sunday New York Times, Nascar, Fantasy Football, "indie" rock, a musical instrument you play yourself, a romantic relationship that hopefully involves love sharing spectular sex and genuine fulfillment, cab rides, obscurantism, long walks down city blocks, cooking, eating, eating at places not your home where you pay money for strangers to bring you food you chose from a list of possible food to eat, people watching, guns, hunting, billiards, crocheting, animal husbandry, knitting, whittling, whistling: do any of these belong to you? I do not know you.

Me, I make culture out of washing dishes, going on drives, attending to fictional soirees, and taking the occasional walk through a place where no people or houses exist. I also spend a lot of time in my mind, searching around for lost articles in which I used to clothe thought.
I am vastly less cool than I used to be, or than I boot-strapped myself into being: if that makes sense. I'm not one to champion pessimism, but in this case I will champion couldgiveshitaless-ism, which is qualitatively neutral from one angle and non-existent from another.

3) Philosophy Is But Its Own Quandary

Of what exactly is empathy a function? I am surrounded by rather insular individuals, who see no reason to pay attention to or care about what goes on elsewhere. Without venturing into categorical imperatives or a richly textured imaginative construction of the Other, is there a firm basis for contesting their neutrality or disinterest, if that is what it is? Perhaps not, but the world then seems reduced, or recessed. I like variety - I even like to come across people whose matrix of self-constitutive factors - psychology, culture, what they ate for breakfast, etc. - is at such a remove that all I can do is stare. I guess I will leave insulated well enough alone.

4) Reading the Bible

Reading the Bible can be very boring. In bare expository form - who goes where when to do what - there is much to criticize. But imagery, metaphor, figure of speech type stuff has its place, regardless in one's proclivity for belief in salvation/redemption/eternity.

I like Jeremiah, find Paul's prose a bit much, and of course Jesus is a superstar throughout. I find it easy to picture Jesus walking on water, always have, ever since Sunday school. And I can picture Jesus walking in a crowd, say just before he tips over all those tables in the temple. But for some reason I can't get an image of Jesus walking alone, or even with a few disciples, out in the country. He seems like an urban kind of walker - praying out in that Garden of Gethsemane, I can handle that - but walking not so much.

5) Flossing, smoking, and stretching

Previously thought tedious, flossing is now a presumptive winner for Comeback Habit of the Year. Smoking cigarettes and dying of slow suffocation in the future looks to have the lead for Habit Most Likely To Not Be Missed. Stretching - not YOGA! - but good old fashioned touch-your-toes, bend-your-knees stretching has a slight lead over one-on-none basketball for New Habit of the Year.

another day, another half dollar

1)

I have taken it upon myself to play music in my class on Fridays. So far I have played the following:

1) [If I gave my soul], Johnny Cash. The title of this song is . . . I’m not sure. It comes from that 5 disc set, the title of which is something like American Recordings Vol. 1-5. I think he made these tracks with Rick Reuben, yes/no?
2) “Lucy” Aesop Rock. A crowd favorite, and also an eyebrow raiser. It took me about twenty minutes to transcribe this, b/c Mr. Rock fits a lot of words into a small amount of time. The kids clamor for more Aesop Rock, though I try to stay away from vulgar lyrics.
3) The Decembrists song that has the “July, July” chorus, and includes the lyric: “this is a song about the road that goes to my house.” This drew mixed results. I heard kids humming it later on in the hall, but one kid also equated it to slow torture in a dungeon. The power pop vibe was deemed “too gay” sounding, and “hard to get from out of your head.”

This Friday, I am leaning towards Mos Def “Mathematics” and something else. What else should I play? I tend to go for songs that tell stories, so perhaps Elvis Costello . . . I don’t know.

All you jobless Omahans should burn me discs and send them to be, thereby brightening the lives of young Native Americans who want the rock like all teenagers do. Bring the rock to me. I shall disseminate it responsibly, without prejudice against genres or subgenres with which I do not agree aesthetically.

2.) the snow is coming down, capping off a stagnant Tuesday afternoon. Taco Tuesday, yes, but that only gets you so far. I would like to eat a cucumber and potato curry, followed by a smooth mango yogurt type arrangement and nan bread. Snow = another winter = potential drastic act such as quitting and moving back to Chicago, not to escape winter so much as to make for another six months of adjusting to a new place before adjustment period segues into another move.

3.) High school kids still prefer “gay” to any other word as the pejorative of choice. Biggie and Tupac also have a long shelf life.

another Sunday awash in sunlight

another Sunday awash in sunlight

Do you believe? Is Ahab, Ahab? I am told that comparisons are odious. Buddhism tells me this. I cannot see myself in a funny white robe. I have little to say in response to White Whales or white robed proselytizers, except to note that sustenance somehow gets lost in this conversation.

Three formative hypothetical experiences that could assail you, white collar worker or above average college student or recently robbed Ohioan or devout Catholic ecclesiastical antinomian or jobless Omahan with large cirrhotic liver and translucent skin:

1) You (male) go into a public restroom, or perhaps a private restroom that can house three to four individuals at a time and has a high volume of traffic at this time of the day. You go into a urinal, do your thing, read the message on the urinal cake, finish doing your thing, walk to the sink, wash your hands, and look into the mirror for a few seconds, taking in your beautiful visage which you see often but never enough of. As you stare, another human male completes his own transaction by washing his hands and decides it necessary to break protocol. He utters a few words of small talk, something about sports or the heat of the office or another equally banal quip. Is he lonely? Do you attempt to answer him? I think not. I think you walk off, with a quick backwards glance to establish eye contact and avoid being completely rude. You are, most days, committed to some version of Midwestern Nice, and though you do not wish to speak, you do not wish to look like a jerk either. As you make your glance, momentarily looking away from the door but reaching for its handle, some other male, perhaps preoccupied with the idea of doing his thing in a few seconds, rushes into the bathroom, thereby causing the door to hit your face with sufficient force to cause a bloodletting all over your nice wrinkle-free white shirt, the one you wear on Mondays and Thursdays one week, Tuesdays and Fridays the next. Besotted with blood, and now having no inclination to speak to anyone ever again, you are no longer Midwestern Nice. You are no longer even Business Casual. To what metaphysical force do you go in order to seek some kind of retributive act? Do you ask this force to direct itself (or Itself, I guess you might want to say) to unleash its/Its fury on the talker, or the door opener?
2) You (female) are walking down the street, looking nice. It is one of the days in this month that you look nice without trying, and you know it. Your stride shows it to others as well, and though you may not flash smiles to anyone there is a glow, not maternal so much as young-woman-entering-her-sexual-prime, biologically speaking of course. As you walk, you mistakenly make eye contact with some male who is a) a jerk b) lonely c) ignorant of how it might feel to be sized up and consumed with the Male Gaze in such a way as to defy description. You speed up, but hear this man fall into step behind you. He walks sideways, looking at and talking to you, at first uttering relatively innocuous things about how nice a day it is, huh? and what’s your hurry, girl? You smile that embarrassed smile you have, no longer so unconsciously cognizant of how nice you look today. (And I here I must interrupt to admit that I have no idea what it feels like to be you, and I also must admit that I have probably succumbed to directing my own personal Male Gaze at a woman such as yourself, even if I do not remember ever giving chase in order to continue being sleazy. At this point, it’s hard even to finish this hypothetical formative experience.) But what do you do, after the embarrassed smile and the slightly faster stride do not rid you of him? You glance at him just long enough to cause him to lose sight of the sawhorse that sits in the street, blocking off the recently tarred section so no car attempts to park itself upon that space. He hits the sawhorse, falls into the tar, and is now the object of the Urban Public Humiliation Gaze of at least twenty five strangers. You walk off into the sunset, assuming of course that the workday is over and you weren’t in fact on your way to work, in which case you may be walking in the early morning light that seems to emanate from no particular direction.
3) You (person of either gender) are worried that when you take off your shoe so the Amish bootmaker Eli can measure your foot, it – your foot/sock combo – will smell. You untie your shoelaces slowly, whereas normally you would just slip off your sneaker because even this late in the game you subscribe to the theory that your shoes should never be too tight to slip off and on with ease. As you lift your foot/sock combo out of the shoe, you sniff hesitantly. Eli, of the Yoder clan, sets your foot on his notepad and traces its outline. He then begins to take measurements with a small cloth measuring device. You look around the room at the collection of leather and leather-oriented tools. You stare into the wick of the lamp whose light spits and flutters with electrified light. You wonder if Eli belongs to the same Yoders that Young Abe does, or if he is of the Old Abe Yoder clan. Hell, there could be a third and you wouldn’t even know. Eli finishes with your right foot, and you slip off your left shoe, momentarily forgetting the anxiety surrounding foot smells. And at that moment, you do smell foot smell, your foot smell, a particularly virulent kind. You want to crawl into a hole, or at the very least walk out of this wooden structure that lacks electricity and escape into the night. But Eli is kind and makes no gesture that signifies he smells the smell he obviously must smell. As he finishes with your left foot, you ask questions about his milk cow and his upcoming trip to Missouri to attend his wife’s brother’s wedding. He is done. You slip back into your shoes, then you try to get up too quickly. You lose your balance, and for a split-second you see yourself falling on top of Eli, who is still kneeling at your feet. But you regain your balance, after a small awkward movement of your arms that could be mistaken for the unconscious twitching that overtakes someone with Tourette’s syndrome. All is well. You shake Eli’s hand, say goodbye to his wife Esther, and return to your one bedroom apartment with a strange smile whose strangeness has nothing whatever to do with irony.