I haven't been blogging or commenting much because I've been really busy and really exhausted getting ready for some new and different challenges in life (related to joining the Navy.)
I'll let you know more when I have more concrete information.
Until then, just know that I have only slightly more information than you do.
Later on,
~seaotter
16 February 2008
01 February 2008
Git along, little blogies...
My blog is moving here, possibly on a permanent basis, depending upon a number of different issues. For those who were/are fans of my myspace blog, have no fear. Many of the entries that I have posted on myspace over the past year will be transferred to this blog. Some of those entries won't survive the transfer, but that's the way things go sometimes. Following the transfer, new entries will be made on this blog.
Thanks for your time and patience,
~Yankee
Thanks for your time and patience,
~Yankee
Some of the "why" behind my decision (January '08)
In the past 12 hours, I have gotten a TON of feedback about my decision, and while 98% of this feedback has been positive, most people have asked me "why?" in one way or another.
I'll try to avoid being as verbose as usual, and instead aim for some rare brevity.
Of course there is the usual sense of duty to my fellow man and the honor of service and all of that, but most of my reasons were more personal.
My family has been represented in the US military in some form almost since my various ancestors arrived in this country. My great uncle has a Navy pilot who had a destroyer named after him (Ohio State football fans might be interested in knowing that the first commander of this vessel was Woody Hayes!) My great aunt was an Air Force surgical nurse who helped develop an open heart surgery procedure that radically increased the survival rates of surgical patients (a procedure still in use today.) Another great uncle was a UDT, and I believe at least one of his sons became a SEAL. One set of grandparents and one set of great grandparents worked on The Manhattan Project. My father was a career Navy officer (he enlisted, but mustanged), and two of his brothers were in the Navy. My generation is the first generation that was not represented in the military (until now.)
I have grown up with great health care, banking, and insurance benefits because my father was in the Navy. I would like to make those same benefits available to my wife and (if we have them one day) children. I could sit here and type out all the details, but I'll summarize by saying that the Navy takes very good care of its people and their families. In this case, the Navy can provide what I could not otherwise provide.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, there is also the issue of long term-joblessness and the hopelessness that comes with having a degree that nobody takes very seriously. I tried a lot of things out before I went with this option, from bouncing to work with a television program that will be aired this year. Nothing panned out as a viable long term option. I needed stable employment, or the education to get it. The military has always represented a path to education and employment for people that would otherwise be out of luck. I looked into other avenues for education, but when all was said and done, nothing came even close to what I could get by joining up. The education I will be getting in the Navy translates directly to a rapidly growing civilian job field. That's a good feeling.
Finally, there is the fact that I've always wanted to go into the medical field. I dig helping people, and what more tangible way to help people than healing them? There is also the fact that helping wounded people is pretty morally unambiguous, even in the most heinous of conflicts (and I'm not making any political statements here, I'm just saying that helping people is good stuff no matter what.)
I'm a little scattered at the moment, as I think of all that I have to do in the next couple of months before I leave (sell a car, return some things, see some folks, etc.,) but if you have any questions, just ask away...
I'll try to avoid being as verbose as usual, and instead aim for some rare brevity.
Of course there is the usual sense of duty to my fellow man and the honor of service and all of that, but most of my reasons were more personal.
My family has been represented in the US military in some form almost since my various ancestors arrived in this country. My great uncle has a Navy pilot who had a destroyer named after him (Ohio State football fans might be interested in knowing that the first commander of this vessel was Woody Hayes!) My great aunt was an Air Force surgical nurse who helped develop an open heart surgery procedure that radically increased the survival rates of surgical patients (a procedure still in use today.) Another great uncle was a UDT, and I believe at least one of his sons became a SEAL. One set of grandparents and one set of great grandparents worked on The Manhattan Project. My father was a career Navy officer (he enlisted, but mustanged), and two of his brothers were in the Navy. My generation is the first generation that was not represented in the military (until now.)
I have grown up with great health care, banking, and insurance benefits because my father was in the Navy. I would like to make those same benefits available to my wife and (if we have them one day) children. I could sit here and type out all the details, but I'll summarize by saying that the Navy takes very good care of its people and their families. In this case, the Navy can provide what I could not otherwise provide.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, there is also the issue of long term-joblessness and the hopelessness that comes with having a degree that nobody takes very seriously. I tried a lot of things out before I went with this option, from bouncing to work with a television program that will be aired this year. Nothing panned out as a viable long term option. I needed stable employment, or the education to get it. The military has always represented a path to education and employment for people that would otherwise be out of luck. I looked into other avenues for education, but when all was said and done, nothing came even close to what I could get by joining up. The education I will be getting in the Navy translates directly to a rapidly growing civilian job field. That's a good feeling.
Finally, there is the fact that I've always wanted to go into the medical field. I dig helping people, and what more tangible way to help people than healing them? There is also the fact that helping wounded people is pretty morally unambiguous, even in the most heinous of conflicts (and I'm not making any political statements here, I'm just saying that helping people is good stuff no matter what.)
I'm a little scattered at the moment, as I think of all that I have to do in the next couple of months before I leave (sell a car, return some things, see some folks, etc.,) but if you have any questions, just ask away...
My "Big News" finally came through. (January '08)
After years of being poor, broke, and having a hard time finding a job, I finally decided to do what poor, broke, people who can't find jobs have done for centuries.
Today, I signed the final papers to join the military.
I joined the Navy, to be exact, and I leave for boot camp in March.
I'm tired right now, so there may be more details tomorrow when I'm feeling more chatty, or perhaps not.
So there you have it. The Big News.
Thanks for dropping by.
Today, I signed the final papers to join the military.
I joined the Navy, to be exact, and I leave for boot camp in March.
I'm tired right now, so there may be more details tomorrow when I'm feeling more chatty, or perhaps not.
So there you have it. The Big News.
Thanks for dropping by.
I think you should hear these (January '08)
Music is a REALLY big deal to the Yankee. I have always cared more about music than most people I know, and I have always remained fairly open-minded about music, despite being a stickler for quality. Music can evoke, arouse, soothe, or attend emotion in a way that other stimuli are hard pressed to match.
So with that as a brief intro., I'd like to share a few albums with everyone. I've actually put more thought and time into this blog than almost any blog I've ever written. Music is that important to me, and my recommendations are not made lightly. I understand that not all music is for everybody, and you may well hate everything I suggest here. That's fine with me.
A lot of what I listen to (though very little of what I will mention here) is what my friend Cam calls "music for musicians." There's a lot of stuff out there that is written for people who like to sit down and listen to every nuance of a tune and will be really excited by the flow, artistry, and performance of a really well crafted piece. Some of us love to lose ourselves in every bend of a string, every confluence of rhythms, every emergence of harmony. On the other hand, most people out there (including most of you, I'd wager) think that listening to a nineteen minute funk song with six minutes of singing and eight separate instrumental solos would be an interminable and mind-bending type of torture.
I say all of this to clarify that what I recommend here will not be what Mrs Yankee likes to call my "music snob" music. There is some really amazing musicianship represented in these albums, but every one of these albums is eminently listenable for even the casual music fan.
These are not "my favorite" albums, although each of them is certainly among my favorites. This is not a "top ___" list, because such lists are silly and shortsighted. Most of these albums are albums I have listened to for years, over and over, from front to back. They have stood the test of time, and are as powerful and meaningful today as they have ever been.These are some albums I'd like to share with you, for one reason or another, and I hope you like them.
Believe it or not, that was the briefest intro I could compose on that topic.
Now on to the albums, in no particular order...
"TRUTH AND SOUL" by Fishbone.
I could have easily made a list comprised entirely of Fishbone albums and been thrilled with the result, but that wouldn't look as unbiased as I intend this list to be.
There is no such thing as a "typical" Fishbone album, nor can one readily define "the Fishbone sound" in an offhand or pithy way. Through every lineup, Fishbone has been comprised of really stellar musicians who have worked very hard to turn out the best product that they can possibly produce. Every album is different, and some quite radically so.
When I am introducing someone to Fishbone for the first time, this is the album I usually give them. "Truth and Soul" is one of their earlier albums, but it captures much of what is great about the band in a brief and readily accessible package. Soaring, soulful vocals, tight horns, powerful, moving rhythms, and incisive lyrics are just some of the foundational elements that you will find in every Fishbone album and "Truth and Soul" has them all in a stripped-down, unvarnished, bare-bones pakage. From the raw emotion of "Freddie's Dead" (a cover of the Curtis Mayfield classic) to the wry wit of "Slow Bus Movin'," from the haunting beauty of "Pouring Rain" to the irrepressible dancing energy of "Bonin' in the Boneyard," Truth and Soul is quite simply one of the greatest albums ever made.
As I noted above, I could list several more Fishbone albums of equal quality and depth (including the most recent album, "Still Stuck in Your Throat,") but if you want a first-time-listener-friendly introduction to a band that would place among the greatest bands of our day, "Truth and Soul" is it.
"Gift Horse" by The Lost Dogs
The Lost Dogs are a band that in many ways defy description. Each of the members of the band are members of other bands, and they get together to make something very special in The Lost Dogs. I could (and probably will) write an entire blog telling you about this band and their history, but if you've made it this far through this blog, you deserve all of the brevity I can muster.
The Lost Dogs don't fit into any musical box very well, but I might try describing them as Appalachian-influenced southern folk-rock from California. Their music is simple, and pleasant in the way that only truly great musicians can produce. Any journeyman who works hard enough can compose and play a pleasing or impressive piece, but only a truly great musician can play something simple, something familiar, and make it really come alive. The Lost Dogs are members of that elite group of musicians who can play the simplest music in a way that cannot be duplicated merely by reproducing the notes. Among the fans of the Lost Dogs are The Kentucky Headhunters, a supergroup comprised of studio musicians who are very widely renowned as some of the best at their craft. I think that says quite a bit.
Even so, what makes The Lost Dogs worthy of this list is how that music works with the lyrics of their songs. These guys have experienced much of the worst that life has to offer, over and over again. They've been through divorce, abandonment, the deaths of loved ones, ostracism, severe poverty, etc. They don't shy from these issues, and they don't sugar coat a damned word of it. Perhaps more impressively, neither do they lie unmoving in misery. The hope that comes from pain is one of the purest and most enduring of emotions, and every Lost Dogs album has that in spades. This is one of the only albums ever that has, in hard times, moved me quite literally to tears. "Gift Horse" is perhaps the most raw, honest, moving, and ultimately comforting album, I've ever heard. If you have really, honestly ever been down in the vicinity of rock bottom for any length of time, this is the album you should at least give one listen. This is only one of several great albums by The Lost Dogs, but it is honestly an American classic.
"Future Classic" by Surreal and DJ Balance
While I'm on the topic of classics, I have to mention the aptly named "Future Classic" by Surreal, working on this album with DJ Balance (among others.) I could (and again, probably will) write an entire blog entry about Surreal, but I'll summarize by saying that he ahs almost single-handedly restored my faith in hip-hop. Surreal has defied every current trend in popular music by producing an album that is strong from start to finish, with great lyircs, fantastic timing, tremendous beats, and elite production. I haven't truly enjoyed a rap album this much since 1995, to be honest. Surreal knows that even the best of emcees is only a novelty act without truly amazing beats, and he consistently works with the best DJs available on the underground scene to craft true works of art. One of my favorite tracks on the album is "Car and a Job," a track he did with Ohmega Watts providing the beats wherein he describes what the true goals of the aspiring rapper should be. This album is not easy to find in stores, but it is available on Napster and online.
By the way, this album only edged out "True Indeed," his collaboration with The Sound Providers, by the narrowest of margins. If you have ever been a hip-hop fan, and you've been mostly disappointed with what the last decade or so has had to offer, you owe it to yourself to check out these albums.
"How to Live with a Curse" by Stavesacre
Stavesacre is the band the LA Times called "the best band you've never heard."
I've been a fan since the mid-nineties. I pre-ordered the very first album, and I've been a loyal fan ever since. Stavesacre is the only band I've seen as many times as I've seen Fishbone. I adored the first two albums, was not quite as impressed by the EP or their next two albums, and was completetly and utterly blown away (in a good way) by the final album. That final album is the album I mention here.
"How to Live with a Curse" is quite simply an amazing album. Lead singer Mark Saloman is one of the few rock vocalists who really sings from the diaphragm (like a soul singer) instead of the throat. The result is that Mark can convey power and emotion in a way that most pure rock singers simply can't match. He doesn't have the skill or range of a Rob Halford or a Bruce Dickinson or a Freddie Mercury, but I'd put Mark Salomon right up there with Stevie Wonder or Bill Withers on his ability to convey raw emotion through song.
Stavesacre has always had the best lyrics of any rock band I can name. It's not even close. Poetic, emotive, and powerful don't really do justcie to the lyrical content of most of their songs, and when really blasted out by the man who wrote them (Saloman,) the lyrics take on depth and meaning rarely if ever matched in popular music. If I sound like I'm gushing, it's because I am. This album is that fucking good. Get a copy. Listen to it from start to finish. Listen to it again. Listen to it one more time. If you still don't think it's a truly great album, I'll be amazed.
One of the saddest moments of 2007 was when the band announced that they were dissolving after more than a decade of great music. No drama or tragedy precipitated the breakup. The sad fact is that most bands can't afford to do what they do just for the love of the music, and as the members of Stavesacre got married and had kids, they just couldn't pay the bills as a full-time band.
Still, they are supposedly working on one final album, which will include the return of original guitarist Jeff Bellew, and there may be one final, very limited tour.
You Orange County people could meet some of the members of Stavesacre when you look for any of these albums. Two members of the band went in with another partner to by OC landmark Greene Records, in Santa Ana. Support small business and a keep part of OC history alive by checking out Greene before you buy on line.
I could write a blog a day just about music, and I could easily extend this list with entries like "Blue Light, Red Light," by Harry Connick, Jr., "Farewell: Live from the Universal Amphitheatre," by Oingo Boingo, "Vex," by Steel Pulse, "Mecca and the Soul Brother" by Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth, "The Roots Come Alive" by The Roots, "In Light Syrup," by Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Songs in the Key of Life," by Stevie Wonder, "Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome," by Parliament, and so on, with explanatory entries for every one.
For now, just give those offerings a listen, and let me know what you think. Love 'em or hate 'em, I'd love to know either way. Oh, and if you have any suggestions that have already stood the test of time, and that you think a really critical music nerd who is picky about both music and lyrics might dig, feel free to offer suggestions. I'll be more than happy to check them out.
Thanks for your time, y'all.
~The Yankee
So with that as a brief intro., I'd like to share a few albums with everyone. I've actually put more thought and time into this blog than almost any blog I've ever written. Music is that important to me, and my recommendations are not made lightly. I understand that not all music is for everybody, and you may well hate everything I suggest here. That's fine with me.
A lot of what I listen to (though very little of what I will mention here) is what my friend Cam calls "music for musicians." There's a lot of stuff out there that is written for people who like to sit down and listen to every nuance of a tune and will be really excited by the flow, artistry, and performance of a really well crafted piece. Some of us love to lose ourselves in every bend of a string, every confluence of rhythms, every emergence of harmony. On the other hand, most people out there (including most of you, I'd wager) think that listening to a nineteen minute funk song with six minutes of singing and eight separate instrumental solos would be an interminable and mind-bending type of torture.
I say all of this to clarify that what I recommend here will not be what Mrs Yankee likes to call my "music snob" music. There is some really amazing musicianship represented in these albums, but every one of these albums is eminently listenable for even the casual music fan.
These are not "my favorite" albums, although each of them is certainly among my favorites. This is not a "top ___" list, because such lists are silly and shortsighted. Most of these albums are albums I have listened to for years, over and over, from front to back. They have stood the test of time, and are as powerful and meaningful today as they have ever been.These are some albums I'd like to share with you, for one reason or another, and I hope you like them.
Believe it or not, that was the briefest intro I could compose on that topic.
Now on to the albums, in no particular order...
"TRUTH AND SOUL" by Fishbone.
I could have easily made a list comprised entirely of Fishbone albums and been thrilled with the result, but that wouldn't look as unbiased as I intend this list to be.
There is no such thing as a "typical" Fishbone album, nor can one readily define "the Fishbone sound" in an offhand or pithy way. Through every lineup, Fishbone has been comprised of really stellar musicians who have worked very hard to turn out the best product that they can possibly produce. Every album is different, and some quite radically so.
When I am introducing someone to Fishbone for the first time, this is the album I usually give them. "Truth and Soul" is one of their earlier albums, but it captures much of what is great about the band in a brief and readily accessible package. Soaring, soulful vocals, tight horns, powerful, moving rhythms, and incisive lyrics are just some of the foundational elements that you will find in every Fishbone album and "Truth and Soul" has them all in a stripped-down, unvarnished, bare-bones pakage. From the raw emotion of "Freddie's Dead" (a cover of the Curtis Mayfield classic) to the wry wit of "Slow Bus Movin'," from the haunting beauty of "Pouring Rain" to the irrepressible dancing energy of "Bonin' in the Boneyard," Truth and Soul is quite simply one of the greatest albums ever made.
As I noted above, I could list several more Fishbone albums of equal quality and depth (including the most recent album, "Still Stuck in Your Throat,") but if you want a first-time-listener-friendly introduction to a band that would place among the greatest bands of our day, "Truth and Soul" is it.
"Gift Horse" by The Lost Dogs
The Lost Dogs are a band that in many ways defy description. Each of the members of the band are members of other bands, and they get together to make something very special in The Lost Dogs. I could (and probably will) write an entire blog telling you about this band and their history, but if you've made it this far through this blog, you deserve all of the brevity I can muster.
The Lost Dogs don't fit into any musical box very well, but I might try describing them as Appalachian-influenced southern folk-rock from California. Their music is simple, and pleasant in the way that only truly great musicians can produce. Any journeyman who works hard enough can compose and play a pleasing or impressive piece, but only a truly great musician can play something simple, something familiar, and make it really come alive. The Lost Dogs are members of that elite group of musicians who can play the simplest music in a way that cannot be duplicated merely by reproducing the notes. Among the fans of the Lost Dogs are The Kentucky Headhunters, a supergroup comprised of studio musicians who are very widely renowned as some of the best at their craft. I think that says quite a bit.
Even so, what makes The Lost Dogs worthy of this list is how that music works with the lyrics of their songs. These guys have experienced much of the worst that life has to offer, over and over again. They've been through divorce, abandonment, the deaths of loved ones, ostracism, severe poverty, etc. They don't shy from these issues, and they don't sugar coat a damned word of it. Perhaps more impressively, neither do they lie unmoving in misery. The hope that comes from pain is one of the purest and most enduring of emotions, and every Lost Dogs album has that in spades. This is one of the only albums ever that has, in hard times, moved me quite literally to tears. "Gift Horse" is perhaps the most raw, honest, moving, and ultimately comforting album, I've ever heard. If you have really, honestly ever been down in the vicinity of rock bottom for any length of time, this is the album you should at least give one listen. This is only one of several great albums by The Lost Dogs, but it is honestly an American classic.
"Future Classic" by Surreal and DJ Balance
While I'm on the topic of classics, I have to mention the aptly named "Future Classic" by Surreal, working on this album with DJ Balance (among others.) I could (and again, probably will) write an entire blog entry about Surreal, but I'll summarize by saying that he ahs almost single-handedly restored my faith in hip-hop. Surreal has defied every current trend in popular music by producing an album that is strong from start to finish, with great lyircs, fantastic timing, tremendous beats, and elite production. I haven't truly enjoyed a rap album this much since 1995, to be honest. Surreal knows that even the best of emcees is only a novelty act without truly amazing beats, and he consistently works with the best DJs available on the underground scene to craft true works of art. One of my favorite tracks on the album is "Car and a Job," a track he did with Ohmega Watts providing the beats wherein he describes what the true goals of the aspiring rapper should be. This album is not easy to find in stores, but it is available on Napster and online.
By the way, this album only edged out "True Indeed," his collaboration with The Sound Providers, by the narrowest of margins. If you have ever been a hip-hop fan, and you've been mostly disappointed with what the last decade or so has had to offer, you owe it to yourself to check out these albums.
"How to Live with a Curse" by Stavesacre
Stavesacre is the band the LA Times called "the best band you've never heard."
I've been a fan since the mid-nineties. I pre-ordered the very first album, and I've been a loyal fan ever since. Stavesacre is the only band I've seen as many times as I've seen Fishbone. I adored the first two albums, was not quite as impressed by the EP or their next two albums, and was completetly and utterly blown away (in a good way) by the final album. That final album is the album I mention here.
"How to Live with a Curse" is quite simply an amazing album. Lead singer Mark Saloman is one of the few rock vocalists who really sings from the diaphragm (like a soul singer) instead of the throat. The result is that Mark can convey power and emotion in a way that most pure rock singers simply can't match. He doesn't have the skill or range of a Rob Halford or a Bruce Dickinson or a Freddie Mercury, but I'd put Mark Salomon right up there with Stevie Wonder or Bill Withers on his ability to convey raw emotion through song.
Stavesacre has always had the best lyrics of any rock band I can name. It's not even close. Poetic, emotive, and powerful don't really do justcie to the lyrical content of most of their songs, and when really blasted out by the man who wrote them (Saloman,) the lyrics take on depth and meaning rarely if ever matched in popular music. If I sound like I'm gushing, it's because I am. This album is that fucking good. Get a copy. Listen to it from start to finish. Listen to it again. Listen to it one more time. If you still don't think it's a truly great album, I'll be amazed.
One of the saddest moments of 2007 was when the band announced that they were dissolving after more than a decade of great music. No drama or tragedy precipitated the breakup. The sad fact is that most bands can't afford to do what they do just for the love of the music, and as the members of Stavesacre got married and had kids, they just couldn't pay the bills as a full-time band.
Still, they are supposedly working on one final album, which will include the return of original guitarist Jeff Bellew, and there may be one final, very limited tour.
You Orange County people could meet some of the members of Stavesacre when you look for any of these albums. Two members of the band went in with another partner to by OC landmark Greene Records, in Santa Ana. Support small business and a keep part of OC history alive by checking out Greene before you buy on line.
I could write a blog a day just about music, and I could easily extend this list with entries like "Blue Light, Red Light," by Harry Connick, Jr., "Farewell: Live from the Universal Amphitheatre," by Oingo Boingo, "Vex," by Steel Pulse, "Mecca and the Soul Brother" by Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth, "The Roots Come Alive" by The Roots, "In Light Syrup," by Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Songs in the Key of Life," by Stevie Wonder, "Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome," by Parliament, and so on, with explanatory entries for every one.
For now, just give those offerings a listen, and let me know what you think. Love 'em or hate 'em, I'd love to know either way. Oh, and if you have any suggestions that have already stood the test of time, and that you think a really critical music nerd who is picky about both music and lyrics might dig, feel free to offer suggestions. I'll be more than happy to check them out.
Thanks for your time, y'all.
~The Yankee
Hope is a powerful narcotic. (December '07)
2007 was not an easy year for the Yankee.
I will spare you the specifics, because you may well have had an even more difficult and/or painful year. The problem with retrospectives is that they invite comparison, which inevitably distracts from the point.
Another problem with retrospectives is that they are almost always an exercise in self-centeredness. When things have been hard, we wallow in our misery. When things have been positive, we tend to gloat (I know I'm not the only one who has received Christmas letters that detail all of the triumphs of the _________ household each year.)
So with all of that in mind, I'm going to try and avoid the wallowing (trust me, there is little enough to gloat about this year) while I try to explain my current mindset, and from whence it cometh.
There is a big difference between dreaming and hoping. The two are not entirely separate, but neither are they synonymous by any means.
For most of my life, I've been a dreamer. I've had ideas that sprung forth from the well of possibility, and no matter how remote that possibility, I would shape that dream and calculate how it might become reality. I would line up the steps like dominoes in my mind. If this happens, and then this comes through, then I can do this, and that will naturally follow...and then it will all fall into place.
When I started out on my own, those dreams were relatively grand. As time passed, they became somewhat more grounded by reality, but never tempered by pessimism. For you see, despite all of my crankiness and curmudgeonly ways, I have always been optimistic at heart. The Yankee cannot abandon the inner belief that, one way or another, everything will be okay--even if things don't quite work out as we'd hoped.
The past few years have put this belief to a serious test. One by one those dreams I dreamed were smashed to pieces. One by one the possibilities and imaginings were transformed into the shattered reminders of failure and lost opportunity. Slowly, but inexorably, the dreams became smaller and smaller. The dreams became less and less the stuff of wonder, and more and more the stuff of desperation. Eventually, the dreams even seemed to die out altogether.
As I said before, I won't list the various circumstances, but I will say that every time it seemed that I had a chance to get back on my feet, life lined up and tried to kick a field goal with my testicles. Then, as I'd collapse to my hands and knees, life would deliver a soccer kick to the face for good measure, and as I'd go fetal, life would work over my ribs and kidneys with Thai kicks. I kept 90% of it out of my blog, but it has not been a fun few months.
And yet, for all of that, I was never without hope. Even though most of the dreams have died altogether, hope remains vigorous and unbowed.
My life may not turn out as I'd wanted it to. I may not be able to provide for my wife in the way that I've always imagined I would. I will probably never impress anyone with my academic achievements, my income, or earned accolades of any sort. I am unlikely to leave any mark on this world within my own lifetime--much less after I'm gone.
All of which is just fine.
Those are dreams. The dreams are gone, and I shan't waste time chasing them.
My hopes remain. I hope that I can find gainful employment such that I can once again contribute meaningfully to the finances. I hope that we can bring our bank balance back up to zero. I hope that we can once again live on our own, free of external assistance. I hope that we remain relatively healthy, and that the injuries and pains we can't afford to have treated will eventually heal. I hope that tomorrow will have a glimmer of hope for the problems of today, and that tomorrow might come and go with no further problems having made themselves known.
The difference as I see it is that the dreams are goals, fleshed out and detailed, and founded upon the vanities and desires of the flesh (I mean this in the classical sense, not the carnal sense--a statement amusing enough in its own right, come to think of it.) Hope lacks these details. Hope lacks the substance and grandeur of a dream. Hope is not founded upon particular scenarios or specific outcomes.
Hope is the idea that, somehow, someway, things will be just a little bit easier around the bend. There may be no evidence to support your optimism. Things may seem as bleak as they could possibly be. Hope is what will just not let you slide into despair. Hope knows that it really is darkest before the dawn. Hope will not give you up to that dark night. Hope will not fail, for as long as there is a breath within us, hope will flourish, for with each breath hope may yet deliver a reprieve.
Paying off a credit card is a dream. Making it through one more month of payments--however that may happen--is a hope. Being healed from a debilitating ailment is a dream. Waking up tomorrow and making it through the day is a hope. Never again wanting for food is a dream. Having enough to make it through tomorrow is a hope.
Circumstances might be grim. Life's woes may assail you without mercy. Dreams may seem beyond your ken.
Yet and still, I implore you to never, ever, ever give up hope.
Dum Spiro, Spero.
When I breathe, I hope.
I will spare you the specifics, because you may well have had an even more difficult and/or painful year. The problem with retrospectives is that they invite comparison, which inevitably distracts from the point.
Another problem with retrospectives is that they are almost always an exercise in self-centeredness. When things have been hard, we wallow in our misery. When things have been positive, we tend to gloat (I know I'm not the only one who has received Christmas letters that detail all of the triumphs of the _________ household each year.)
So with all of that in mind, I'm going to try and avoid the wallowing (trust me, there is little enough to gloat about this year) while I try to explain my current mindset, and from whence it cometh.
There is a big difference between dreaming and hoping. The two are not entirely separate, but neither are they synonymous by any means.
For most of my life, I've been a dreamer. I've had ideas that sprung forth from the well of possibility, and no matter how remote that possibility, I would shape that dream and calculate how it might become reality. I would line up the steps like dominoes in my mind. If this happens, and then this comes through, then I can do this, and that will naturally follow...and then it will all fall into place.
When I started out on my own, those dreams were relatively grand. As time passed, they became somewhat more grounded by reality, but never tempered by pessimism. For you see, despite all of my crankiness and curmudgeonly ways, I have always been optimistic at heart. The Yankee cannot abandon the inner belief that, one way or another, everything will be okay--even if things don't quite work out as we'd hoped.
The past few years have put this belief to a serious test. One by one those dreams I dreamed were smashed to pieces. One by one the possibilities and imaginings were transformed into the shattered reminders of failure and lost opportunity. Slowly, but inexorably, the dreams became smaller and smaller. The dreams became less and less the stuff of wonder, and more and more the stuff of desperation. Eventually, the dreams even seemed to die out altogether.
As I said before, I won't list the various circumstances, but I will say that every time it seemed that I had a chance to get back on my feet, life lined up and tried to kick a field goal with my testicles. Then, as I'd collapse to my hands and knees, life would deliver a soccer kick to the face for good measure, and as I'd go fetal, life would work over my ribs and kidneys with Thai kicks. I kept 90% of it out of my blog, but it has not been a fun few months.
And yet, for all of that, I was never without hope. Even though most of the dreams have died altogether, hope remains vigorous and unbowed.
My life may not turn out as I'd wanted it to. I may not be able to provide for my wife in the way that I've always imagined I would. I will probably never impress anyone with my academic achievements, my income, or earned accolades of any sort. I am unlikely to leave any mark on this world within my own lifetime--much less after I'm gone.
All of which is just fine.
Those are dreams. The dreams are gone, and I shan't waste time chasing them.
My hopes remain. I hope that I can find gainful employment such that I can once again contribute meaningfully to the finances. I hope that we can bring our bank balance back up to zero. I hope that we can once again live on our own, free of external assistance. I hope that we remain relatively healthy, and that the injuries and pains we can't afford to have treated will eventually heal. I hope that tomorrow will have a glimmer of hope for the problems of today, and that tomorrow might come and go with no further problems having made themselves known.
The difference as I see it is that the dreams are goals, fleshed out and detailed, and founded upon the vanities and desires of the flesh (I mean this in the classical sense, not the carnal sense--a statement amusing enough in its own right, come to think of it.) Hope lacks these details. Hope lacks the substance and grandeur of a dream. Hope is not founded upon particular scenarios or specific outcomes.
Hope is the idea that, somehow, someway, things will be just a little bit easier around the bend. There may be no evidence to support your optimism. Things may seem as bleak as they could possibly be. Hope is what will just not let you slide into despair. Hope knows that it really is darkest before the dawn. Hope will not give you up to that dark night. Hope will not fail, for as long as there is a breath within us, hope will flourish, for with each breath hope may yet deliver a reprieve.
Paying off a credit card is a dream. Making it through one more month of payments--however that may happen--is a hope. Being healed from a debilitating ailment is a dream. Waking up tomorrow and making it through the day is a hope. Never again wanting for food is a dream. Having enough to make it through tomorrow is a hope.
Circumstances might be grim. Life's woes may assail you without mercy. Dreams may seem beyond your ken.
Yet and still, I implore you to never, ever, ever give up hope.
Dum Spiro, Spero.
When I breathe, I hope.
So you've finally become a regular (December '07)
I've got you fooled. It's the same thing, week in and week out, and the really pathetic thing is that I don't have to say or do a damned thing. You fool yourself. You fool yourself about me, you fool yourself about your friends, you fool yourself about the opposite sex, and you live your life in a pitiful little bubble of self-delusion. But you know the saddest part of all? Even on your best day (which you probably think is your worst,) even on the day when life has smacked you upside your sorry little head and forced its way into your egocentric fairyland, even on the day when you see your sorry shell of a life for what it really is, you still think you've got the rest of us fooled.
You walk up to me and smile and shake my hand and you tell yourself that I'm your friend. You introduce your friends to me as if I'm going to have even the remotest interest in the human detritus that voluntarily associates with you. You tell them that I'm the man. You tell them that I've got your back. You tell them that I'll take care of them, just like I take care of you.
Sure I will. I'll give them the same wan, sarcastic smile that I give you. You know, that smile that you think is a sign of my genuine delight at your presence and concern for your well being. I'll shake their hands and pat them on the back and tell them to go enjoy themselves, just like I do with you. Then I'll think the same thoughts about them that I think about you. I'll think about how sorry your life must be when I see you night after night. I'll think about what a joke it is that I actually know your name, despite every effort to avoid even that much interaction with you. I'll think about how my smarmy, disingenuous smile will put you more at ease and make you feel like coming back again.
In a way, I really do want you to come back again, because watching you dance your way through your personal waltz of failure time and time again is what lines my pockets and keeps me warm. Even so, your money is only barely enough incentive to stand there and watch you mindwarp yourself night after night after night.
Down a few shots. Sure, your life isn't so bad... Drink a few beers. Maybe going to the same boring grind every day has a point. This isn't what your life has come to, this is just a speed bump. Just a little detour on your road to success. Order another shot. These people are really fascinated by what you have to say. Order another beer. The bartender really seems to be digging on your vibe.
I'm sure she's just fascinated by everything you have to say.
I'm sure he's never encountered a patron quite like you before.
You've gotten to know each other.
You have a rapport.
She really cares about you.
He's your friend.
This is like your own little Cheers. Everybody knows your name. Everybody cares...
Order one more shot to keep this buzz going. The girl at the next barstool is really digging you.
Maybe have a quick refill. That guy on the dance floor is just entranced by your moves.
Maybe you should buy her a drink, you know, just to get her attention.
If she really got to know you she'd be all over you. Once you get her listening, she'll be into you for something more than the free booze.
Down another martini. Grind your hips against that guy on the dance floor. You don't look like those other girls. You're not just some drunken slut dry humping a pathetic loser to make yourself feel worthwhile and lovable. No, you're using your smooth moves and the raw power of your personal sexuality as a tool to empower yourself and arouse this masculine creature now gyrating between your thighs. You've snagged a real winner. He can tell that you're not like the rest of these shallow bitches.
Drink another beer. She is totally into you. She's putting her hand on your arm and laughing at your jokes. You have a real connection. You're not just chatting up another tipsy lush. You're taking the first step on that road to finding your soulmate. You just needed to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe we should have one more shot for the road.
Last call. Time to go. I usher you out and stroke your ego because you're drunk enough to think I'm sincere and I'm sober enough to know that if I say something nice you'll do whatever I say, right now. You make cocky, arrogant comments and I laugh and reassure you that you're the man. The truth is that I want nothing more than to shove your pearly white teeth so far down your throat that your gag reflex will start at your kidneys. Not that you'd ever believe that. I've got your back. I'm your pal.
You tell me in a too loud voice that you really think you might be getting laid tonight. She rolls her eyes. Not that she has any moral high ground to stand on. Maybe she won't go home with you tonight, but I've seen her go home with other guys more than a few times. Maybe they just dropped her off at the doorstep. Maybe that hollow smile backed by eyes full of shame and regret comes from some other sad tragedy in her life. Or maybe she's just another bar slut who knows that if she laughs and jokes and flirts and smiles, she won't have to pay for her own intoxication. I suppose that's only fair, because you know that if you pay for those drinks and smile and flirt and laugh at her jokes and tell her how special she is, she'll hop on her back and validate your pathetic existence for one more empty, meaningless night.
It's really nothing different from what she tells herself. Maybe she thinks that if she only goes home with somebody every few months she's somehow more discerning than the girl who picks a new guy every few nights. Maybe she thinks that she's better than the ones who've quit trying to pretend that they're something special. Maybe they're just the honest ones. Maybe someday you'll come to an understanding. Maybe someday you'll work it out and find that connection.
Not tonight though. Tonight you both mess it up. You misread the verbal and the nonverbal cues and go home alone to whatever shell of life you still lead. You go home to the place that made you want to come here in the first place. You go back to a life so wasted and meaningless that you'd rather spend time with life's flotsam and jetsam than actually face what your life--and by extension you--has become...but not before you stagger over to me and try to get a hug and coax a friendly smile. After all...I'm your friend, right?
Keep telling yourself that I'm your friend. Do everything you can to avoid facing the reality that you're nothing to me besides a source of income and case study in the depressing lifestyle of the pitifully self-deluded. Tell yourself that my smile is sincere and not sarcastic. Tell yourself that I really do care about you as a person. Tell yourself whatever you need to tell yourself to make it through until closing. Then give me your money and get your shame-soaked, ignorant, despicable carcass the hell out of my bar.
Oh, and I'll see you tomorrow... friend. :)
You walk up to me and smile and shake my hand and you tell yourself that I'm your friend. You introduce your friends to me as if I'm going to have even the remotest interest in the human detritus that voluntarily associates with you. You tell them that I'm the man. You tell them that I've got your back. You tell them that I'll take care of them, just like I take care of you.
Sure I will. I'll give them the same wan, sarcastic smile that I give you. You know, that smile that you think is a sign of my genuine delight at your presence and concern for your well being. I'll shake their hands and pat them on the back and tell them to go enjoy themselves, just like I do with you. Then I'll think the same thoughts about them that I think about you. I'll think about how sorry your life must be when I see you night after night. I'll think about what a joke it is that I actually know your name, despite every effort to avoid even that much interaction with you. I'll think about how my smarmy, disingenuous smile will put you more at ease and make you feel like coming back again.
In a way, I really do want you to come back again, because watching you dance your way through your personal waltz of failure time and time again is what lines my pockets and keeps me warm. Even so, your money is only barely enough incentive to stand there and watch you mindwarp yourself night after night after night.
Down a few shots. Sure, your life isn't so bad... Drink a few beers. Maybe going to the same boring grind every day has a point. This isn't what your life has come to, this is just a speed bump. Just a little detour on your road to success. Order another shot. These people are really fascinated by what you have to say. Order another beer. The bartender really seems to be digging on your vibe.
I'm sure she's just fascinated by everything you have to say.
I'm sure he's never encountered a patron quite like you before.
You've gotten to know each other.
You have a rapport.
She really cares about you.
He's your friend.
This is like your own little Cheers. Everybody knows your name. Everybody cares...
Order one more shot to keep this buzz going. The girl at the next barstool is really digging you.
Maybe have a quick refill. That guy on the dance floor is just entranced by your moves.
Maybe you should buy her a drink, you know, just to get her attention.
If she really got to know you she'd be all over you. Once you get her listening, she'll be into you for something more than the free booze.
Down another martini. Grind your hips against that guy on the dance floor. You don't look like those other girls. You're not just some drunken slut dry humping a pathetic loser to make yourself feel worthwhile and lovable. No, you're using your smooth moves and the raw power of your personal sexuality as a tool to empower yourself and arouse this masculine creature now gyrating between your thighs. You've snagged a real winner. He can tell that you're not like the rest of these shallow bitches.
Drink another beer. She is totally into you. She's putting her hand on your arm and laughing at your jokes. You have a real connection. You're not just chatting up another tipsy lush. You're taking the first step on that road to finding your soulmate. You just needed to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe we should have one more shot for the road.
Last call. Time to go. I usher you out and stroke your ego because you're drunk enough to think I'm sincere and I'm sober enough to know that if I say something nice you'll do whatever I say, right now. You make cocky, arrogant comments and I laugh and reassure you that you're the man. The truth is that I want nothing more than to shove your pearly white teeth so far down your throat that your gag reflex will start at your kidneys. Not that you'd ever believe that. I've got your back. I'm your pal.
You tell me in a too loud voice that you really think you might be getting laid tonight. She rolls her eyes. Not that she has any moral high ground to stand on. Maybe she won't go home with you tonight, but I've seen her go home with other guys more than a few times. Maybe they just dropped her off at the doorstep. Maybe that hollow smile backed by eyes full of shame and regret comes from some other sad tragedy in her life. Or maybe she's just another bar slut who knows that if she laughs and jokes and flirts and smiles, she won't have to pay for her own intoxication. I suppose that's only fair, because you know that if you pay for those drinks and smile and flirt and laugh at her jokes and tell her how special she is, she'll hop on her back and validate your pathetic existence for one more empty, meaningless night.
It's really nothing different from what she tells herself. Maybe she thinks that if she only goes home with somebody every few months she's somehow more discerning than the girl who picks a new guy every few nights. Maybe she thinks that she's better than the ones who've quit trying to pretend that they're something special. Maybe they're just the honest ones. Maybe someday you'll come to an understanding. Maybe someday you'll work it out and find that connection.
Not tonight though. Tonight you both mess it up. You misread the verbal and the nonverbal cues and go home alone to whatever shell of life you still lead. You go home to the place that made you want to come here in the first place. You go back to a life so wasted and meaningless that you'd rather spend time with life's flotsam and jetsam than actually face what your life--and by extension you--has become...but not before you stagger over to me and try to get a hug and coax a friendly smile. After all...I'm your friend, right?
Keep telling yourself that I'm your friend. Do everything you can to avoid facing the reality that you're nothing to me besides a source of income and case study in the depressing lifestyle of the pitifully self-deluded. Tell yourself that my smile is sincere and not sarcastic. Tell yourself that I really do care about you as a person. Tell yourself whatever you need to tell yourself to make it through until closing. Then give me your money and get your shame-soaked, ignorant, despicable carcass the hell out of my bar.
Oh, and I'll see you tomorrow... friend. :)
Thankfulness (November '07)
I mean to type this blog a few days ago, but I've been sick as a...well, really sick, and I haven't had the mental energy or the focus to do anything but sit still and think about how much pain individual air molecules can cause when they keep careening willy-nilly into me with no regard whatsoever for my condition.
That's not the best start for a blog about thankfulness. Damn my honesty. I'd curse the medication, too, but I really think it's helping and I'm not one to tempt fate. Maybe that's where I ought to start. I'm thankful for medication that helps me feel better when I'm sick.
As nice as that was, in a fifth-grade-essay sort of way, it really has nothing to do with what I sat down to write about, and if I don't just say "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" I may never get around to the blog I sat down to write, so perhaps that's the best course of action after all.
One more bit of prolegomena, though. Once I got the idea for this blog a few days ago and played with it in my head, it struck me how much the central theme was akin to a blog I read a couple of years ago by Malcolm-Jamal Warner entitled "Happy white-man-stole-land-from-the-Native-American-Day ." If you go to his blog by clicking that link, you can find it by clicking the link in the margin entitled "older" under "blog archives." While you're there, read a few of his other blogs. You just might dig them.
Getting on with the topic at hand, I was called in to work Wednesday night (the night before Thanksgiving,) because Thanksgiving Eve usually turns out to be a pretty busy night at our little small town nightclub. It seems that all of the college students and young professionals who have come home to spend the holidays with mom and dad can only handle so much "family time." By the end of the night, they want to go out and find some alcoholic refuge, which the local bars and clubs are only too happy to provide.
As it turned out, we were not busy at all for most of the night, and I was left standing alone out in the cold waiting for people to show up so I could check their ID's. Nothing much was happening inside, and standing in the cold beats standing in the cigarette smoke any day. I was just getting ready to head inside when my friend Sinan showed up with a bunch of his Albanian friends.
Sinan is from Kosovo, and plays keeper for our soccer team. He's also an incredibly nice guy, and engaged, so while his friends were inside looking for girls to dance with, Sinan stayed outside and chatted with me.
As is often the case, the conversation turned to politics and history. I always ask a lot of questions because I am embarrassingly under-informed about the history of the Balkan nations. Sinan is always happy to help me out with intelligent and even-handed responses. I'm paraphrasing here, as I'm going from memory.
I'll spare you the play-by-play of the conversation, and skip to the part where I asked him if he plans to stay, or if he would like to go back to Kosovo.
"Oh, stay here, of course. Kosovo is very beautiful, and the people are wonderful, but I would have to be crazy to want to go back there."
This only inspired me to investigate further.
"It is so free here." he said. "You can go where you want, when you want, and there is enough for everybody if you want to work. Here you can live without being nervous or afraid. For instance, in America, if the police pull you over, they have a reason! I can drive and I don't have to be afraid when I see the police. If they do pull you over, they write your ticket and that is the end. They don't try to threaten you for bribes."
I laughed and mentioned things like getting pulled over for "DWB (driving while black.)"
"Oh sure, this place is not perfect, and there are some bad people everywhere, but here that is the exception, and everybody knows that this is wrong. Even the news will sometimes talk about it. Where I am from, that (news coverage of police misdoings) would never happen. For the most part, you do not have to be afraid here."
Sinan went on to tell me more about life in the Balkans, and especially what things were like for people in the former Yugoslavia.
"Religion was banned, so if they caught you praying--to anyone, Jesus, Allah, Buddah, no matter--they could shoot you or take you to prison for as long as they want. We could never just stand here and talk like we are talking now. If someone reported you, you would go to prison or worse. Here you have choices for jobs and education. Even today, in Kosovo, many places have no roads or running water or electricity. The infrastructure was never built up equally. Going from Kosovo to Serbia is like going from Mexico to the United States. It's that big of a difference. I think many times Americans don't realize how good life is here."
We talked for an hour or so, and he told me a great deal more about his life here, and what life was like back in the Balkans. We chatted until his friends came out, and they moved on to another club. At that point I went inside and began to chat with the few regulars left at the bar, including an Indian man who moved here recently from London, and a Kenyan gentleman who is half Gikuyu and half Kalinjin. We began to chat about freedoms and some of the topics that Sinan and I had discussed.
"It's hard to explain to someone who has never lived like that, but it changes you." they said. "You find that you are always very careful about what you say, and to whom, because anything you say can be reported, and if that happens, you may never be heard from again--and what of your family? No, you must always take great care with what you say, where you go, who you are seen with, and the like."
I have been somewhat educated about the unrest that disturbed India and Kenya years ago, while these men were growing up, so I was well aware of what they were talking about in an intellectual sense.
Still, having never lived under that kind of fear, or that kind of oppression, it can be hard to even grasp what it must have been like for them, or how sweet their freedoms must now seem.
And that, in the end, is the point. No matter how difficult our lives may be at times, no matter how much we might be frustrated with government bureaucracy or daily inconveniences, no matter how hard our lives may seem here in this country, we are so unbelievably blessed when viewed from a global perspective.
I'm not saying that this nation can't improve, and I'm certainly not saying that we should remain content with the status quo. Lord knows that I'm one of the most outspoken people you'll ever meet in terms of advocating political changes and government reform.
But with that said, it's important that we takes some time off--at the VERY LEAST one day in our year--to reflect on how very free and how truly blessed we really are. I can sit here and type this, and you can sit where you are sitting and read this, and neither of us has to worry about the neighbors reporting us, or the secret police kicking in our doors, or any of the myriad other worries that people in other nations live with EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES.
Our water is clean and fit for human consumption. We could dumpster dive and come up with more abundant, healthier, and cleaner food than would be available at any price in many countries. We can spend time with our families in freedom from persecution or fear, and if we choose we can pray and thank any god we please for that blessing.
I know I'm a few days late and I'm always a few dollars short, but I hope you'll take the time as you read this to think about the many, many blessings we have as residents of the various free countries that we live in (Daz, Lea, Harry and others included here,) and maybe even take a few moments to give thanks, and to do what we can to make someone else's life a little bit freer and more rewarding in the process.
Thanks for your time,
~The Yankee
That's not the best start for a blog about thankfulness. Damn my honesty. I'd curse the medication, too, but I really think it's helping and I'm not one to tempt fate. Maybe that's where I ought to start. I'm thankful for medication that helps me feel better when I'm sick.
As nice as that was, in a fifth-grade-essay sort of way, it really has nothing to do with what I sat down to write about, and if I don't just say "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" I may never get around to the blog I sat down to write, so perhaps that's the best course of action after all.
One more bit of prolegomena, though. Once I got the idea for this blog a few days ago and played with it in my head, it struck me how much the central theme was akin to a blog I read a couple of years ago by Malcolm-Jamal Warner entitled "Happy white-man-stole-land-from-the-Native-American-Day ." If you go to his blog by clicking that link, you can find it by clicking the link in the margin entitled "older" under "blog archives." While you're there, read a few of his other blogs. You just might dig them.
Getting on with the topic at hand, I was called in to work Wednesday night (the night before Thanksgiving,) because Thanksgiving Eve usually turns out to be a pretty busy night at our little small town nightclub. It seems that all of the college students and young professionals who have come home to spend the holidays with mom and dad can only handle so much "family time." By the end of the night, they want to go out and find some alcoholic refuge, which the local bars and clubs are only too happy to provide.
As it turned out, we were not busy at all for most of the night, and I was left standing alone out in the cold waiting for people to show up so I could check their ID's. Nothing much was happening inside, and standing in the cold beats standing in the cigarette smoke any day. I was just getting ready to head inside when my friend Sinan showed up with a bunch of his Albanian friends.
Sinan is from Kosovo, and plays keeper for our soccer team. He's also an incredibly nice guy, and engaged, so while his friends were inside looking for girls to dance with, Sinan stayed outside and chatted with me.
As is often the case, the conversation turned to politics and history. I always ask a lot of questions because I am embarrassingly under-informed about the history of the Balkan nations. Sinan is always happy to help me out with intelligent and even-handed responses. I'm paraphrasing here, as I'm going from memory.
I'll spare you the play-by-play of the conversation, and skip to the part where I asked him if he plans to stay, or if he would like to go back to Kosovo.
"Oh, stay here, of course. Kosovo is very beautiful, and the people are wonderful, but I would have to be crazy to want to go back there."
This only inspired me to investigate further.
"It is so free here." he said. "You can go where you want, when you want, and there is enough for everybody if you want to work. Here you can live without being nervous or afraid. For instance, in America, if the police pull you over, they have a reason! I can drive and I don't have to be afraid when I see the police. If they do pull you over, they write your ticket and that is the end. They don't try to threaten you for bribes."
I laughed and mentioned things like getting pulled over for "DWB (driving while black.)"
"Oh sure, this place is not perfect, and there are some bad people everywhere, but here that is the exception, and everybody knows that this is wrong. Even the news will sometimes talk about it. Where I am from, that (news coverage of police misdoings) would never happen. For the most part, you do not have to be afraid here."
Sinan went on to tell me more about life in the Balkans, and especially what things were like for people in the former Yugoslavia.
"Religion was banned, so if they caught you praying--to anyone, Jesus, Allah, Buddah, no matter--they could shoot you or take you to prison for as long as they want. We could never just stand here and talk like we are talking now. If someone reported you, you would go to prison or worse. Here you have choices for jobs and education. Even today, in Kosovo, many places have no roads or running water or electricity. The infrastructure was never built up equally. Going from Kosovo to Serbia is like going from Mexico to the United States. It's that big of a difference. I think many times Americans don't realize how good life is here."
We talked for an hour or so, and he told me a great deal more about his life here, and what life was like back in the Balkans. We chatted until his friends came out, and they moved on to another club. At that point I went inside and began to chat with the few regulars left at the bar, including an Indian man who moved here recently from London, and a Kenyan gentleman who is half Gikuyu and half Kalinjin. We began to chat about freedoms and some of the topics that Sinan and I had discussed.
"It's hard to explain to someone who has never lived like that, but it changes you." they said. "You find that you are always very careful about what you say, and to whom, because anything you say can be reported, and if that happens, you may never be heard from again--and what of your family? No, you must always take great care with what you say, where you go, who you are seen with, and the like."
I have been somewhat educated about the unrest that disturbed India and Kenya years ago, while these men were growing up, so I was well aware of what they were talking about in an intellectual sense.
Still, having never lived under that kind of fear, or that kind of oppression, it can be hard to even grasp what it must have been like for them, or how sweet their freedoms must now seem.
And that, in the end, is the point. No matter how difficult our lives may be at times, no matter how much we might be frustrated with government bureaucracy or daily inconveniences, no matter how hard our lives may seem here in this country, we are so unbelievably blessed when viewed from a global perspective.
I'm not saying that this nation can't improve, and I'm certainly not saying that we should remain content with the status quo. Lord knows that I'm one of the most outspoken people you'll ever meet in terms of advocating political changes and government reform.
But with that said, it's important that we takes some time off--at the VERY LEAST one day in our year--to reflect on how very free and how truly blessed we really are. I can sit here and type this, and you can sit where you are sitting and read this, and neither of us has to worry about the neighbors reporting us, or the secret police kicking in our doors, or any of the myriad other worries that people in other nations live with EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES.
Our water is clean and fit for human consumption. We could dumpster dive and come up with more abundant, healthier, and cleaner food than would be available at any price in many countries. We can spend time with our families in freedom from persecution or fear, and if we choose we can pray and thank any god we please for that blessing.
I know I'm a few days late and I'm always a few dollars short, but I hope you'll take the time as you read this to think about the many, many blessings we have as residents of the various free countries that we live in (Daz, Lea, Harry and others included here,) and maybe even take a few moments to give thanks, and to do what we can to make someone else's life a little bit freer and more rewarding in the process.
Thanks for your time,
~The Yankee
Why the Republican Party is only headed for more trouble (September '07)
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/
At the time of this posting, it's the third article down, titled "Four Empty Podiums" by Lauren Kornreich.
Here's the text:
BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) — There were ten podiums on the stage, but only six candidates showed up.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, all said they had scheduling conflicts and skipped Thursday night's PBS All American Presidential Forum on minority issues. The Republican candidates who participated in the debate blasted their rivals for their absence.
"Frankly, I'm embarrassed," former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said. "I'm embarrassed for our party and I'm embarrassed for those who did not come, because there's long been a divide in this country, and it doesn't get better when we don't show up."
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, said it hurts the Republican Party when candidates choose not to participate in debates.
"I want to say just at the outset, I apologize for the candidates that aren't here," Brownback said. "I think this is a disgrace that they're not here."
But moderator Tom Joyner made jokes, at their expense.
"And let me take a moment right here and now to say hello to those of you viewing from home," Joyner said. "Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Senator John McCain. Governor Mitt Romney. And Senator Fred Thompson. Well, you know, I had to call them out."
Now, just to clarify, the problem is not that the four top-ranking candidates skipped out on a debate. That's bad enough, but the truth is that they could skip all of the debates and it would only matter to the narrowest percentage of the voters.
No, the problem is that the Republican Party by and large just says "Fuck You" to anyone outside of their key demographic. A PBS forum on minority issues moderated by Tom Joyner? "Tell them no thanks, and maybe suggest that they go fuck themsleves when we RSVP."
I've pointed out a few of the similarities between the Nixon presidency and the Bush presidency, but I don't want to belabor the point, because there are enough people doing that (usually in a ham-handed and inaccurate manner, but so be it) already.
The one similarity I do wish to point out is between the Republican leadership in Nixon's day and the Republican leadership today. Neither group had/has trust for the public, neither group did/will even bother to acknowledge the concerns of anyone outside of their voting base, and neither group was/is willing to face up to the obvious repercussions of failed policies. The big difference being that Nixon Republicans were riding an unprecedented wave of popularity, and could arguably afford to play those games. Today...not so much.
Now don't get me wrong. If the election were held today, I would probably vote for a Republican--Ron Paul. Then again, the party has essentially told him to go fuck himself as well, so I suppose he's not the best representative of that party. Odds are that by Election Day, I'll still be voting for Ron Paul, only he'll be the Libertarian candidate.
I actually hope that they keep it up, and I hope the Democrats continue to play the copycat game with the Republicans. Maybe both sides can manage to screw up so royally that we actually begin to question the two-party system in this country.
It seems that hope is all some of us have these days...
New facts come to light in the Jena 6 case (Sept '07)
All of this just strengthens my theory that the two cases should be taken as independent incidents, and that race should not be the focus here (see my last blog entry for details,)but still, much of the information is both interesting and informative.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070922/ap_on_re_us/a_place_called_jena;_ylt=ApvDj9_A_DIlgOBC1nZwOEhK2ocA
Some highlights from the article:
"The so-called "white tree" at Jena High, often reported to be the domain of only white students, was nothing of the sort, according to teachers and school administrators; students of all races, they say, congregated under it at one time or another.
Two nooses — not three — were found dangling from the tree. Beyond being offensive to blacks, the nooses were cut down because black and white students "were playing with them, pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them," according to a black teacher who witnessed the scene.
There was no connection between the September noose incident and December attack, according to Donald Washington, an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department in western Louisiana, who investigated claims that these events might be race-related hate crimes.
The three youths accused of hanging the nooses were not suspended for just three days — they were isolated at an alternative school for about a month, and then given an in-school suspension for two weeks.
The six-member jury that convicted Bell was, indeed, all white. However, only one in 10 people in LaSalle Parish is African American, and though black residents were selected randomly by computer and summoned for jury selection, none showed up."
I guess it just goes to further illustrate that rhetoric and race politics really do serve to muddy the waters far more than they have ever served to clarify matters. It also goes to show that few issues are really as polar as the media would like to portray them.
Whatever lesson you take from the matter, the indisputable fact is that press coverage has served to take an unfair and complex problem and make it even less fair by trying to simplify it.
As always, your thoughts are welcomed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070922/ap_on_re_us/a_place_called_jena;_ylt=ApvDj9_A_DIlgOBC1nZwOEhK2ocA
Some highlights from the article:
"The so-called "white tree" at Jena High, often reported to be the domain of only white students, was nothing of the sort, according to teachers and school administrators; students of all races, they say, congregated under it at one time or another.
Two nooses — not three — were found dangling from the tree. Beyond being offensive to blacks, the nooses were cut down because black and white students "were playing with them, pulling on them, jump-swinging from them, and putting their heads through them," according to a black teacher who witnessed the scene.
There was no connection between the September noose incident and December attack, according to Donald Washington, an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department in western Louisiana, who investigated claims that these events might be race-related hate crimes.
The three youths accused of hanging the nooses were not suspended for just three days — they were isolated at an alternative school for about a month, and then given an in-school suspension for two weeks.
The six-member jury that convicted Bell was, indeed, all white. However, only one in 10 people in LaSalle Parish is African American, and though black residents were selected randomly by computer and summoned for jury selection, none showed up."
I guess it just goes to further illustrate that rhetoric and race politics really do serve to muddy the waters far more than they have ever served to clarify matters. It also goes to show that few issues are really as polar as the media would like to portray them.
Whatever lesson you take from the matter, the indisputable fact is that press coverage has served to take an unfair and complex problem and make it even less fair by trying to simplify it.
As always, your thoughts are welcomed.
The Jena 6 issue--a race issue, but is that for the best? (September '07)
The arrival of Reverend Al and his posse ensures that it is now primarily viewed as a race issue. But is that really helping matters?
The web has been inundated today with coverage of the "Jena 6" and the "March for Justice" down in Louisiana.
I admit that I knew very little about the issue prior to the research I did today, but today I went about the business of educating myself, and studied several of the arguments in this controversial case.
Here's a quick summary:
In the socially backward town of Jena, Louisiana, students at the local high school apparently engaged in a sort of voluntary segregation. Some black students briefly entered an area that was traditionally considered "white" territory beneath a particular tree. Just to illustrate how backward this area is, the black students first sought permission from a school administrator.
In retaliation, some white students tied little nooses on the tree. At the very least, this was tasteless and offensive. Given the history of lynchings in that part of the country in the not-so-distant past, this could also have been interpreted as a not very subtle death threat. The principal recommended treating it as a serious matter, but the school board overruled him and gave the boys a few days of suspension--which was seen as a pretty light punishment, especially if your kid was one of those threatened with the noose.
This light punishment angered many people, including many black students at the school. In an apparent retaliation, six boys jumped and group stomped a white student who was not even involved in the incident (not that it should really matter either way.) The white student now has permanent hearing damage, eye damage, and still has blood clots in his head (that's potentially fatal, for you non-medical types.)
The local authorities elected to charge the kids with attempted murder, and set their bail at varied, but exceptionally high, amounts. This could be construed as an exceptionally harsh punishment--unless your kid is the one in the hospital.
Now, each case has a series of very serious issues, most of which should be self evident. One group was indeed punished very lightly, and one group was punished very harshly. One group was white, and one group was black. The case for a comparison makes itself, right?
I don't think that's a sound way to go.
When we compare the two issues, we inevitably have to compare this:
with this:
When we get to the point where we try to compare hate speech to a potentially fatal physical group stomping, both issues get eclipsed in the ensuing mayhem.
Viewed next to the 6 on 1 mauling of an uninvolved party, the noose incident doesn't seem nearly as horrifying as it should.
Viewed next to the noose incident, the 6 on 1 mauling of an uninvolved party seems far more horrifying than it should.
The comparison doesn't do justice to either case, and ultimately serves to bolster the argument of those who would uphold the original judgments. Add Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the rhetoric of incensed radio hosts and bloggers, and the real issues of miscarried justice are lost in the hubbub.
I believe that the wisest course of action would be to handle each issue as a separate case, each of which merits a great deal of attention. Look at the case of the "hate speech" as an entity unto itself, and grill the authorities on why--in an era where the use of the word "bomb" in an airport is a potential felony--a veiled murder threat was just swept under the rug.
In the same way, look at the case of the physical assault as an entity unto itself. Ask why--in an era where potentially lethal drunk drivers get a night in the pokey and a few hundred dollars' bail--these boys are having to face bail amounts topping $70,000.
The comparisons and the emphasis on the racial divide only serve to inflame the rhetoric and stoke the emotions--thereby increasing the likelihood that justice will again be ignored.
When cool heads and sound minds prevail, justice is far more likely to prevail alongside.
The web has been inundated today with coverage of the "Jena 6" and the "March for Justice" down in Louisiana.
I admit that I knew very little about the issue prior to the research I did today, but today I went about the business of educating myself, and studied several of the arguments in this controversial case.
Here's a quick summary:
In the socially backward town of Jena, Louisiana, students at the local high school apparently engaged in a sort of voluntary segregation. Some black students briefly entered an area that was traditionally considered "white" territory beneath a particular tree. Just to illustrate how backward this area is, the black students first sought permission from a school administrator.
In retaliation, some white students tied little nooses on the tree. At the very least, this was tasteless and offensive. Given the history of lynchings in that part of the country in the not-so-distant past, this could also have been interpreted as a not very subtle death threat. The principal recommended treating it as a serious matter, but the school board overruled him and gave the boys a few days of suspension--which was seen as a pretty light punishment, especially if your kid was one of those threatened with the noose.
This light punishment angered many people, including many black students at the school. In an apparent retaliation, six boys jumped and group stomped a white student who was not even involved in the incident (not that it should really matter either way.) The white student now has permanent hearing damage, eye damage, and still has blood clots in his head (that's potentially fatal, for you non-medical types.)
The local authorities elected to charge the kids with attempted murder, and set their bail at varied, but exceptionally high, amounts. This could be construed as an exceptionally harsh punishment--unless your kid is the one in the hospital.
Now, each case has a series of very serious issues, most of which should be self evident. One group was indeed punished very lightly, and one group was punished very harshly. One group was white, and one group was black. The case for a comparison makes itself, right?
I don't think that's a sound way to go.
When we compare the two issues, we inevitably have to compare this:
with this:
When we get to the point where we try to compare hate speech to a potentially fatal physical group stomping, both issues get eclipsed in the ensuing mayhem.
Viewed next to the 6 on 1 mauling of an uninvolved party, the noose incident doesn't seem nearly as horrifying as it should.
Viewed next to the noose incident, the 6 on 1 mauling of an uninvolved party seems far more horrifying than it should.
The comparison doesn't do justice to either case, and ultimately serves to bolster the argument of those who would uphold the original judgments. Add Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the rhetoric of incensed radio hosts and bloggers, and the real issues of miscarried justice are lost in the hubbub.
I believe that the wisest course of action would be to handle each issue as a separate case, each of which merits a great deal of attention. Look at the case of the "hate speech" as an entity unto itself, and grill the authorities on why--in an era where the use of the word "bomb" in an airport is a potential felony--a veiled murder threat was just swept under the rug.
In the same way, look at the case of the physical assault as an entity unto itself. Ask why--in an era where potentially lethal drunk drivers get a night in the pokey and a few hundred dollars' bail--these boys are having to face bail amounts topping $70,000.
The comparisons and the emphasis on the racial divide only serve to inflame the rhetoric and stoke the emotions--thereby increasing the likelihood that justice will again be ignored.
When cool heads and sound minds prevail, justice is far more likely to prevail alongside.
Johnny got his gun (September '07)
"Johnny, get your gun, get your gun, get your gun. Johnny, show the Hun you're a son-of-a-gun. Hoist the flag and let her fly. Yankee Doodle, do or die!"
~From "Over There" by George M. Cohan.
As a kid, I spent most of my time playing outdoors. One of the benefits of growing up in small-town New England is a freedom from fear that every child should get to experience. I'd hop over the back fence, walk over to my friend Luke's house, and we'd spend the day exploring the woods, fishing in the lake, or playing in the shaded fields underneath the black walnut trees. Most days, we'd be joined by a few other kids from the neighborhood, but even if there were only a couple of us, we were sure to head outside and play in one place or another.
The black walnut trees were a special gift to us in those days. In addition to providing shade in the summer, hosting an endless supply of squirrels to shoot at, and being great pillars to hide behind, every fall brought a fresh crop of fist-sized green globes to hurl at one another. We'd return home every night with brown-stained hands that smelled of the unique odor of walnut husk.
Those walnuts were the perfect enhancement to our playtimes. Green, oblong, perfectly sized...they were the absolute ideal for use as surrogate grenades. They might have served as makeshift baseballs, or BB targets, or any number of other creative substitutions--but not for us. No, like most boys our age, we liked to play "War."
For years, every day was a new battle. Some days, we fought the Nazis. Some days, we battled the treacherous VC. The Cold War was still in full swing, so it wasn't unusual to find us stopping a Russian invasion. For the most part, though, we just fought one another. Armed with an endless supply of toy guns and real knives, setting ambushes in the forest, or sneaking up on each other from behind the garage, we were developing the skills we were certain would lead us to victory in some glorious future battle.
If we weren't outside, we were inside watching GI Joe, or Rambo, or Commando, or Predator, or Red Dawn, or some other bit of entertainment that played to (or shaped) our interests. We made up scenarios for our GI Joe action figures, set traps for them with fireworks, made them rappel off the back of the couch, or had battles against the hordes and legions of green, molded plastic army men. We even listened to Marine cadences (jodies) sent back by Luke's older brother in boot camp.
Every day, we exulted in the glory of war. Secure in the knowledge that we were the "good guys," we went home safely each night, ready to engage in a new conflict the next morning. At some point in life, I am certain that all of us were expecting to join the military when we grew up. After all, that was the greatest and most noble thing a man could do! The good guy always came home safe, the enemies weren't real people, and the cause was always right.
We weren't the first generation of children raised that way, and we probably won't be the last.
In cognizance of this fact, Dalton Trumbo wrote a book published in 1939 titled "Johnny Got His Gun." The title is a reference to the patriotic, pro-war song quoted at the beginning of this blog. Of course, we never read this book, nor did we see the 1971 movie written by the same author. I wonder if we'd have thought any differently if we had.
"Johnny Got His Gun" is the story of a boy raised very much like I was, taught to serve, and to stand up for what's right. In an era of more easily definable conflicts, Johnny eventually does his noble duty and heads off to the Great War (World War I.) But something goes wrong.
Caught by the explosion of an artillery shell, Johnny loses his sight, his hearing, and his ability to speak. Shrapnel so severely damages his arms and legs that he becomes a quadruple amputee. Unable to speak, to see, to hear, or to move, Johnny is trapped in his own mind, aware, but left very much alone, and without any means with which to contact the world around him. Johnny finally figures out a way to communicate using morse code, but no one seems to know what he is doing. Eventually a new nurse figures it out, and some members of his military unit are brought in to translate. What he has to say is simple, direct, and powerful.
In 1988, Metallica released a song based on the novel. The song was called "One." For the video, they wanted to use clips from the movie, so rather than haggle over usage rights, they bought the movie outright. The result was visually and emotionally powerful.
I loved the song, and indeed loved that whole album, but it would be years before I'd learn what the song was really about. Even then, it was not until I saw the video that the full impact of the message really hit me.
Maye this would have been too powerful for me to understand as a child. Maybe powerful images and the realities of violent conflict would have been an unreasonable intrusion into my safe, idyllic world. I don't deny that I am much happier looking back on memories of climbing trees and shooting toy guns than I would be if reflecting upon an innocence shattered. I certainly wasn't ready for such harsh truths at that age, and I don't for a minute pretend to advocate exposing children to the harsh realities of war.
Instead, I'm drawn to reflect upon what I was exposed to. I wonder if the images we watched, the lessons we learned, and the games that we played were ultimately healthier than some happy medium might have been. Maybe GI Joe and Rambo and Ronnie Reagan and blind patriotism are fine fodder for the young mind, but only if tempered by some realities when we're finally old enough to understand the whole picture.
In conclusion, I give you "One." Please take a few moments and watch it all the way through, even if you aren't a fan of the music. The message communicated is well worth the time, and well worth our consideration.
~From "Over There" by George M. Cohan.
As a kid, I spent most of my time playing outdoors. One of the benefits of growing up in small-town New England is a freedom from fear that every child should get to experience. I'd hop over the back fence, walk over to my friend Luke's house, and we'd spend the day exploring the woods, fishing in the lake, or playing in the shaded fields underneath the black walnut trees. Most days, we'd be joined by a few other kids from the neighborhood, but even if there were only a couple of us, we were sure to head outside and play in one place or another.
The black walnut trees were a special gift to us in those days. In addition to providing shade in the summer, hosting an endless supply of squirrels to shoot at, and being great pillars to hide behind, every fall brought a fresh crop of fist-sized green globes to hurl at one another. We'd return home every night with brown-stained hands that smelled of the unique odor of walnut husk.
Those walnuts were the perfect enhancement to our playtimes. Green, oblong, perfectly sized...they were the absolute ideal for use as surrogate grenades. They might have served as makeshift baseballs, or BB targets, or any number of other creative substitutions--but not for us. No, like most boys our age, we liked to play "War."
For years, every day was a new battle. Some days, we fought the Nazis. Some days, we battled the treacherous VC. The Cold War was still in full swing, so it wasn't unusual to find us stopping a Russian invasion. For the most part, though, we just fought one another. Armed with an endless supply of toy guns and real knives, setting ambushes in the forest, or sneaking up on each other from behind the garage, we were developing the skills we were certain would lead us to victory in some glorious future battle.
If we weren't outside, we were inside watching GI Joe, or Rambo, or Commando, or Predator, or Red Dawn, or some other bit of entertainment that played to (or shaped) our interests. We made up scenarios for our GI Joe action figures, set traps for them with fireworks, made them rappel off the back of the couch, or had battles against the hordes and legions of green, molded plastic army men. We even listened to Marine cadences (jodies) sent back by Luke's older brother in boot camp.
Every day, we exulted in the glory of war. Secure in the knowledge that we were the "good guys," we went home safely each night, ready to engage in a new conflict the next morning. At some point in life, I am certain that all of us were expecting to join the military when we grew up. After all, that was the greatest and most noble thing a man could do! The good guy always came home safe, the enemies weren't real people, and the cause was always right.
We weren't the first generation of children raised that way, and we probably won't be the last.
In cognizance of this fact, Dalton Trumbo wrote a book published in 1939 titled "Johnny Got His Gun." The title is a reference to the patriotic, pro-war song quoted at the beginning of this blog. Of course, we never read this book, nor did we see the 1971 movie written by the same author. I wonder if we'd have thought any differently if we had.
"Johnny Got His Gun" is the story of a boy raised very much like I was, taught to serve, and to stand up for what's right. In an era of more easily definable conflicts, Johnny eventually does his noble duty and heads off to the Great War (World War I.) But something goes wrong.
Caught by the explosion of an artillery shell, Johnny loses his sight, his hearing, and his ability to speak. Shrapnel so severely damages his arms and legs that he becomes a quadruple amputee. Unable to speak, to see, to hear, or to move, Johnny is trapped in his own mind, aware, but left very much alone, and without any means with which to contact the world around him. Johnny finally figures out a way to communicate using morse code, but no one seems to know what he is doing. Eventually a new nurse figures it out, and some members of his military unit are brought in to translate. What he has to say is simple, direct, and powerful.
In 1988, Metallica released a song based on the novel. The song was called "One." For the video, they wanted to use clips from the movie, so rather than haggle over usage rights, they bought the movie outright. The result was visually and emotionally powerful.
I loved the song, and indeed loved that whole album, but it would be years before I'd learn what the song was really about. Even then, it was not until I saw the video that the full impact of the message really hit me.
Maye this would have been too powerful for me to understand as a child. Maybe powerful images and the realities of violent conflict would have been an unreasonable intrusion into my safe, idyllic world. I don't deny that I am much happier looking back on memories of climbing trees and shooting toy guns than I would be if reflecting upon an innocence shattered. I certainly wasn't ready for such harsh truths at that age, and I don't for a minute pretend to advocate exposing children to the harsh realities of war.
Instead, I'm drawn to reflect upon what I was exposed to. I wonder if the images we watched, the lessons we learned, and the games that we played were ultimately healthier than some happy medium might have been. Maybe GI Joe and Rambo and Ronnie Reagan and blind patriotism are fine fodder for the young mind, but only if tempered by some realities when we're finally old enough to understand the whole picture.
In conclusion, I give you "One." Please take a few moments and watch it all the way through, even if you aren't a fan of the music. The message communicated is well worth the time, and well worth our consideration.
Why I oppose gay marriage (September '07)
I knew that would get your attention. :)
I suppose I could have composed a more politically correct title, but that's not really my style, and for what it's worth, the title isn't entirely inaccurate. Then again, it's not entirely accurate either. This blog is going to take another shot at Big Brother, and maybe give you a new perspective on a hot-button issue at the same time. Besides, I've recently picked up a bunch of new readers, and it's always fun to see how many of you will go running for the hills when I tackle a topic like this.
The whole gay marriage debate has been hotly contested from two major points of view. The media loves to portray the whole controversy as an issue of gay rights vs. religious conservatism. The problem is, it's not that simple.
I look at the issue from another point of view. The way I see it, there is a much bigger issue of governmental interference here that nobody seems to be contesting. The "gay rights" lobby would love to see the government assert some legal muscle on their behalf, and the religious right would love to see the government step in and enforce their beliefs. The gay rights groups are running to the government for protection against the big, scary religious conservatives. The religious conservatives are running to the government for protection against those big, scary homosexuals.
The problem is, each side is running to enlist the help of a much more dangerous monster as they seek to vanquish their respective bogeymen. Government involvement is less like a two edged sword, and more like a guillotine. It seems like a good idea when you want to trim off a mangled digit or remove an infected limb. The problem is, you can't make it go away when they want to stick your head in the damned thing.
The sticking point is actually a "semantic" one. Those of you who have ever engaged in any serious study of law, philosophy, religion, or government know how serious "semantic" issues can be. In point of fact, most great debates can be broken down in terms of semantics. The meanings we assign to certain words define the use of those words and our reactions to those words.
In this case, the word is "marriage." I am against government involvement in marriage in any way, and I'll gladly tell you why.
Marriage has been recognized by governments for centuries, but it was a religious institution long before that. Marriage is mentioned as a purely religious ceremony in many of the earliest manuscripts and most ancient texts known to man. This is true of ancient cultures in many different areas and covering many different religious beliefs. Eventually laws were passed regarding marriage, but given that most of these ancient cultures were literally or nominally theocratic in nature, such laws are not a solid argument for marriage as a purely legal institution.
The very fact that the government recognizes marriages performed by certain religious officials and not others is a clear indication of how the system is playing favorites in regard to religion. Furthermore, the existence of tax credits for married couples (often used as an argument for gay marriage) is further proof of special benefits bestowed to participants in a religious rite.
As far as I'm concerned, government and religion need not mix to have a happy society, and in fact is far more rational and equitable when the two keep well separated. Those who would wish to debate this topic are more than willing to challenge me, and I will happily blog on the issue of the separation of church and state for the benefit of all involved.
Now some of you might wish to argue with me at this point, noting that the government performs civil marriages that are not inherently religious (getting hitched by the justice of the peace.) I would respond by saying that the government has no business sanctioning "marriages," as marriage is both originally and traditionally a religious rite.
If the government wants to allow special tax credits and rights to people who cohabitate for long periods of time and form family units, that's fine, I suppose, but to say that some of these are valid and some are not is downright discriminatory. If the government wants to establish a legal civil union that the government sanctions, that's fine and dandy, but the government should allow access to that civil union for all of its citizens. Furthermore, the government should not then recognize a similar religious ceremony as legally valid. Religious folks who marry and want civil union benefits should have to apply like everybody else.
On the other side of the coin, the government should never be telling churches who they must and must not allow into their religious ceremonies. If your church doesn't want to baptize people who wear red shoes, the government has no business telling that church to do otherwise. If your church wants to perform marriages between two women or two men, that's the business of your church, not the business of the government. Furthermore, if your church wants to refuse to perform a marriage for whatever reason, that is the right of that church as a religious body.
In the same way, dissolution of a civil partnership would be a legal matter, while dissolution of the marriage would be a matter of religion and private counsel. Arbitrators and religious leaders handled such problems for centuries without benefit of government. They should be required to clean up their own messes once again.
In short, "marriage" is a religious matter, and the state should not be involved for better or for worse. That includes tax breaks, legal judgments, etc. The church should not be trying to involve the government, as this is ultimately both hypocritical and a slippery slope. The government should not be recognizing "marriage" as a legal status, in my opinion.
The union of two individuals for personal or professional reasons could perhaps be a government issue, but this should not be called "marriage," and should apply to all regardless of religion, gender, etc. Those who wish to marry may do so, but the receipt of union rights should come about as a result of filling out the proper paperwork and following the same procedure as everyone else, of any religious or non-religious background. In the same way, the church should not be involved in the government sanctioned union process.
If a gay couple wants to marry and a church want to allow it, fine. That will be by religious definition a marriage, and I do not now nor will I ever oppose this. The government has no business sanctioning or disallowing this religious ceremony. If another church refuses to perform the same ceremony for other people, fine. The government should stay the hell out of it.
If the government wants to create a status similar to marriage and recognize it legally, fine. The church has no business interfering with the affairs of government. If the government wants to come up with a nifty legal name for that, fine, just don't call it marriage, as marriage should be a religious ceremony. The church should stay the hell out of it.
I think that government and religion need to be well separated, for the well being of both institutions. No individual or group of individuals is going to profit in the long run by inviting government interference into private affairs.
PS--I wrote this because I promised a blog yesterday and didn't deliver. It may not be up to my usual standards, and I apologize, but I had to get something out there. I may edit later, but for now I just needed to get something out there to try and salvage my credibility. Hope you enjoy...
I suppose I could have composed a more politically correct title, but that's not really my style, and for what it's worth, the title isn't entirely inaccurate. Then again, it's not entirely accurate either. This blog is going to take another shot at Big Brother, and maybe give you a new perspective on a hot-button issue at the same time. Besides, I've recently picked up a bunch of new readers, and it's always fun to see how many of you will go running for the hills when I tackle a topic like this.
The whole gay marriage debate has been hotly contested from two major points of view. The media loves to portray the whole controversy as an issue of gay rights vs. religious conservatism. The problem is, it's not that simple.
I look at the issue from another point of view. The way I see it, there is a much bigger issue of governmental interference here that nobody seems to be contesting. The "gay rights" lobby would love to see the government assert some legal muscle on their behalf, and the religious right would love to see the government step in and enforce their beliefs. The gay rights groups are running to the government for protection against the big, scary religious conservatives. The religious conservatives are running to the government for protection against those big, scary homosexuals.
The problem is, each side is running to enlist the help of a much more dangerous monster as they seek to vanquish their respective bogeymen. Government involvement is less like a two edged sword, and more like a guillotine. It seems like a good idea when you want to trim off a mangled digit or remove an infected limb. The problem is, you can't make it go away when they want to stick your head in the damned thing.
The sticking point is actually a "semantic" one. Those of you who have ever engaged in any serious study of law, philosophy, religion, or government know how serious "semantic" issues can be. In point of fact, most great debates can be broken down in terms of semantics. The meanings we assign to certain words define the use of those words and our reactions to those words.
In this case, the word is "marriage." I am against government involvement in marriage in any way, and I'll gladly tell you why.
Marriage has been recognized by governments for centuries, but it was a religious institution long before that. Marriage is mentioned as a purely religious ceremony in many of the earliest manuscripts and most ancient texts known to man. This is true of ancient cultures in many different areas and covering many different religious beliefs. Eventually laws were passed regarding marriage, but given that most of these ancient cultures were literally or nominally theocratic in nature, such laws are not a solid argument for marriage as a purely legal institution.
The very fact that the government recognizes marriages performed by certain religious officials and not others is a clear indication of how the system is playing favorites in regard to religion. Furthermore, the existence of tax credits for married couples (often used as an argument for gay marriage) is further proof of special benefits bestowed to participants in a religious rite.
As far as I'm concerned, government and religion need not mix to have a happy society, and in fact is far more rational and equitable when the two keep well separated. Those who would wish to debate this topic are more than willing to challenge me, and I will happily blog on the issue of the separation of church and state for the benefit of all involved.
Now some of you might wish to argue with me at this point, noting that the government performs civil marriages that are not inherently religious (getting hitched by the justice of the peace.) I would respond by saying that the government has no business sanctioning "marriages," as marriage is both originally and traditionally a religious rite.
If the government wants to allow special tax credits and rights to people who cohabitate for long periods of time and form family units, that's fine, I suppose, but to say that some of these are valid and some are not is downright discriminatory. If the government wants to establish a legal civil union that the government sanctions, that's fine and dandy, but the government should allow access to that civil union for all of its citizens. Furthermore, the government should not then recognize a similar religious ceremony as legally valid. Religious folks who marry and want civil union benefits should have to apply like everybody else.
On the other side of the coin, the government should never be telling churches who they must and must not allow into their religious ceremonies. If your church doesn't want to baptize people who wear red shoes, the government has no business telling that church to do otherwise. If your church wants to perform marriages between two women or two men, that's the business of your church, not the business of the government. Furthermore, if your church wants to refuse to perform a marriage for whatever reason, that is the right of that church as a religious body.
In the same way, dissolution of a civil partnership would be a legal matter, while dissolution of the marriage would be a matter of religion and private counsel. Arbitrators and religious leaders handled such problems for centuries without benefit of government. They should be required to clean up their own messes once again.
In short, "marriage" is a religious matter, and the state should not be involved for better or for worse. That includes tax breaks, legal judgments, etc. The church should not be trying to involve the government, as this is ultimately both hypocritical and a slippery slope. The government should not be recognizing "marriage" as a legal status, in my opinion.
The union of two individuals for personal or professional reasons could perhaps be a government issue, but this should not be called "marriage," and should apply to all regardless of religion, gender, etc. Those who wish to marry may do so, but the receipt of union rights should come about as a result of filling out the proper paperwork and following the same procedure as everyone else, of any religious or non-religious background. In the same way, the church should not be involved in the government sanctioned union process.
If a gay couple wants to marry and a church want to allow it, fine. That will be by religious definition a marriage, and I do not now nor will I ever oppose this. The government has no business sanctioning or disallowing this religious ceremony. If another church refuses to perform the same ceremony for other people, fine. The government should stay the hell out of it.
If the government wants to create a status similar to marriage and recognize it legally, fine. The church has no business interfering with the affairs of government. If the government wants to come up with a nifty legal name for that, fine, just don't call it marriage, as marriage should be a religious ceremony. The church should stay the hell out of it.
I think that government and religion need to be well separated, for the well being of both institutions. No individual or group of individuals is going to profit in the long run by inviting government interference into private affairs.
PS--I wrote this because I promised a blog yesterday and didn't deliver. It may not be up to my usual standards, and I apologize, but I had to get something out there. I may edit later, but for now I just needed to get something out there to try and salvage my credibility. Hope you enjoy...
News and Notes (September '07)
This isn't intended to be a real blog, but I needed to get my fingers typing again and it's also helpful to distract myself so that my subconscious can get working on a topic worth reading. I have a list of topics taht I've been meaning to blog about, but for some reason making that list feels like a "safety net," so I'm hesitant to use any of my "go-to" topics. Maybe I just need to cover them all and get it over with. i don't know.
The weekend was not a great one as blog fodder goes. The club was inexplicably slow, with no real crowd to sepak of and nothing much going on. The only happening of note was that the mother of one of my youth group kids came in to party with her friends (for the new readers, I used to be a youth pastor many moons ago.) That was...strange, to say the least.
This past weekend also saw another brithday for Mrs. Yankee. Good times were had by all.
In an unrelated event, we went to the store to get a new pair of shin guards for my latest sporting endeavor, and stumbled into a huge clearance sale at our local sporting goods store. I ended up coming home with three more pairs of shoes. A few of the old pairs are going to have to move on, but I'll refrain from elaborating, because another shoe-focused blog is probably a bit too much weirdness for the new readers.
Getting back to the birthday festivities, I made a bit of extra scratch this week thanks to some lucrative side jobs, so Mrs. Yankee and I went on a rare shopping excursion as an additional birthday treat. While Mrs. Yankee was browsing the "intimates" section at the store, I wandered around for a while and looked at the toy section to see if there was anything cool I could pick up for my neices and nephews. When I came back, Mrs. Yankee was in the dressing room, but I did not know this, so I wandered through the racks of bras and panties looking for my wife. There is a reason I don't like doing this, and my worst fears were realized when a white-haired old southern lady sidled up to me, gave me a disapproving glare and said "Now YOU KNOW you shouldn't be wandering around in here and looking at all of this!"
She gave a snort of disapproval and she turned on her heel as I stammered, turned bright red, and tried to explain that I had a wife around there somewhere. She was uninterested in the excuses and ravings of an obvious pervert.
Well, those are the notes and that's the news for now. You'll get a more substantial blog before the day is over.
Hasta later,
The Yankee
The weekend was not a great one as blog fodder goes. The club was inexplicably slow, with no real crowd to sepak of and nothing much going on. The only happening of note was that the mother of one of my youth group kids came in to party with her friends (for the new readers, I used to be a youth pastor many moons ago.) That was...strange, to say the least.
This past weekend also saw another brithday for Mrs. Yankee. Good times were had by all.
In an unrelated event, we went to the store to get a new pair of shin guards for my latest sporting endeavor, and stumbled into a huge clearance sale at our local sporting goods store. I ended up coming home with three more pairs of shoes. A few of the old pairs are going to have to move on, but I'll refrain from elaborating, because another shoe-focused blog is probably a bit too much weirdness for the new readers.
Getting back to the birthday festivities, I made a bit of extra scratch this week thanks to some lucrative side jobs, so Mrs. Yankee and I went on a rare shopping excursion as an additional birthday treat. While Mrs. Yankee was browsing the "intimates" section at the store, I wandered around for a while and looked at the toy section to see if there was anything cool I could pick up for my neices and nephews. When I came back, Mrs. Yankee was in the dressing room, but I did not know this, so I wandered through the racks of bras and panties looking for my wife. There is a reason I don't like doing this, and my worst fears were realized when a white-haired old southern lady sidled up to me, gave me a disapproving glare and said "Now YOU KNOW you shouldn't be wandering around in here and looking at all of this!"
She gave a snort of disapproval and she turned on her heel as I stammered, turned bright red, and tried to explain that I had a wife around there somewhere. She was uninterested in the excuses and ravings of an obvious pervert.
Well, those are the notes and that's the news for now. You'll get a more substantial blog before the day is over.
Hasta later,
The Yankee
Stupid people, racial profiling, and another weekend of bouncing. (August '07)
I've gone far too long without posting a blog, so this seemed like an opportune time to share a few of my tales from work this past weekend.
For anyone who may have missed my previous entries, I have been doing some part-time work as a bouncer at a local club. The work is easy, if a bit boring, and I suppose that babysitting adults isn't the worst job a lad could have. In fact there are moments that help the time to fly by, and almost make the hours and the pay seem worth the aggravation.
This blog will contain a selection of anecdotes from my nightly interaction with various club attendees. Please note that most of these happened before any alcohol had been consumed. Before I get to the stories, however, I need to give you all some background.
Cover charges are a funny thing. Some people cannot bear the idea that they might have to spend a few dollars to get into a club. In fact, that's the very idea of a cover charge. If you're the kind of person who balks at dropping a few bucks to get into the place, we sure as hell don't want you taking up valuable space inside. People will argue and curse and accuse me of sexism, racism, and everything nasty under the sun, and all because I asked them to give me five or ten dollars before walking in. The real irony of the whole thing is that most of them would not think twice about spending $50-$150 or more on a bar tab once they get inside, but for some reason, dropping a Lincoln is apparently tantamount to physical torture. Also amusing is that fact that many patrons see being exempt from the cover charge as a status symbol of sorts. The truth of the matter is that if you're not paying cover, it's probably because the bar owners have figured out that you're guaranteed to spend an excessive amount of money no matter what, and they just want to get you inside to take your earnings the easy way.
I mention all of that because this past weekend was a lot worse than usual when it comes to people whining about cover charges and dress code. Which reminds me, I need to talk about dress code. The official policy from the (now ex-) manager is twofold. His exact words to me were "no thug shit, they've got to look respectable--except for the rednecks, they spend a lot." The second part of this twofold master plan is "If they're black, find a reason." What he means there is that I should find a reason not to let them in. I should clarify that a number of our best customers are a group of local black men who come in and dance and spend quite a bit of money while making the club a better place to be. These guys never pay cover when I'm at the door (I used to coach wrestling with one of them,) and the owner would probably be pretty unhappy if I turned them away. The (now ex-) manager has decided that they don't count as "black." No, to him, only violent, drug-dealing thugs are really "black." Urbane and well-heeled locals are apparently colorless. It's hard to believe that it's 2007 sometimes.
What's funny about this is that I don't really enforce either portion of that policy. First of all, there's no way I'm going to enforce a racist policy. Period. Second of all, as long as you don't look like a bum, I really don't care about your fashion sense. Just one more irony in the whole scenario is that the (now ex-) manager loves the fact that I bring in so much money when I work the door, which is most likely due to the fact that I don't bother to enforce his policies. The only policies I DO enforce when it comes to dress code are:
1. If you are wearing one of those sundress-looking long-ass T-shirts, you have to tuck it in.
2. Take off your hat.
3. No jerseys, unless you just came from the game and are wearing the local team colors.
4. If your pants are hanging off your ass, pull them up.
5. No wife-beaters (the shirt, but that would also go for the action)
6. No offensive slogans on your clothing or anything that will cause a fight.
7. Once you're inside, if you want to untuck your shirt, pull down your pants, and put on your hat, I really don't give a damn, just be respectful when you're in my immediate presence.
So as you can see, I don't usually deny anybody admission, and I usually don't charge anybody extra unless they are being an exceptional ass. I just ask them to do what it takes to comply and to dress up a little when they come back. Almost without exception, they do.
Yet even with such a lax and permissive policy, I still get crap about it every night that I work the door.
One young man strolled up wearing an oversize Eagles football jersey. I stopped him at the door and told him that I couldn't let him in wearing a jersey.
Him: "What if I was white peoples?" (sic)
Me: I couldn't let any of you wear the jersey.
I don't think he got the joke.
One young lady had a particularly rough night on Friday night. My guess is that she was using something else, maybe G, because after only three drinks she got so plastered that she passed out on the bar, vomited all over herself, and started making high, keening noises while crying for her mommy and drifting in and out of consciousness. This despite being of ample mass to handle a couple of drinks pretty easily. She had to receive constant attention to keep her from hurting herself until her mother showed up. Did I mention that this was at 2 am, and the girl in question is in her mid-to-late twenties?
As an aside here, I asked the (now ex-) manager how he knew the number for the girl's mother. His response? "I used to (have sex with) her back when she was on meth. She used to be pretty hot. It's a shame the way she's blown up."
He's a prince among men, that guy...
So the next night, the girl comes back AGAIN. She was not embarrassed in the least when the barback and I tried to convince her to go back home by relating some of the shameful details of her behavior the night before. "Ha, ha--was I really that bad? I can't remember at all!" This was said with a laugh and a huge smile.
I tried to drive the point home. "We had to call your MOTHER, who had to get out of bed at 2 am to drive down here and pick you up!"
"Oh, it's totally cool," she said, giving us each a reassuring pat on the arm. "She's used to it. She sleeps in her clothes now, so it's no problem!"
Then she walked into the bar, head held high. Something to be proud of, that.
Many people are surprised when they move to GA and find out that we stop serving alcohol at midnight on Saturdays. This is a "blue law" left over from a bygone day that is surprisingly unlikely to be overturned here in the Bible belt.
The way the club handles this law is that they allow people to buy several drinks at a time before midnight, and then they stay open and allow people to drink until 2 am. This is significant because if you arrive after midnight, you can't buy anything. In light of this fact, I double the cover charge at midnight, because we don't want people just coming in and using our place as a free after hours hangout.
Many people are surprised when they show up and I ask them for more money than usual and then tell them that they won't be able to drink. I explain the law and the situation, at which point they are free to either pay or leave.
One woman, who showed all of the signs of being a drugged up, past her-prime, day-shift stripper, gave me an extra helping of crap about it, but she finally paid up and I let her inside. Later on, she came outside to find me again and complain about a law that I didn't pass and a club policy that I didn't invent. I gave her my usual response to people who want to debate the issue.
"Think about that the next time you vote, and don't let anyone into office who wants to restrict your freedoms."
She turned to me with a smug smile and said, "Well I have a felony, so I can't vote. What's that do to your little argument?!" Satisfied, she grinned from ear to ear, turned on her heel, and walked back into the bar.
She sure showed me.
We have a small, but loyal contingent of British nationals who patronize the bar, two of whom are wealthy lads of Indian descent who hail from London. They periodically bring cousins to the club, and recently started bringing an uncle who is newly arrived to the states. In addition to being really great guys, they are frequent customers who spend quite a bit, so we try to make sure that we take proper care of them and that they are always treated well.
One large group of young lads had finally been admitted after griping and haranguing over the cover charge for a good long while. Almost immediately after they had walked into the courtyard, the aforementioned uncle walked into the club with no more than a shake of my hand and receipt of a welcome. This infuriated the youngsters, who had just parted with a fair sum of money to gain entrance.
"How come we have to pay, and he doesn't? What the fuck makes him so special?"
Tired of having the same discussion over and over, and feeling no need to justify myself to these hooligans, I played the race card.
"South Asians don't pay at this club!" I responded. Not technically true, but I love messing with the rednecks.
"Asians?" Came the reply. "That's bullshit! He don't even look Chinese!"
I started laughing so hard they just gave up and went inside.
Who came first, the idiots or the drunks?
I think the drunks were always idiots. They just use the alcohol to turn their own volume up.
Something to ponder, no? Comment away...
For anyone who may have missed my previous entries, I have been doing some part-time work as a bouncer at a local club. The work is easy, if a bit boring, and I suppose that babysitting adults isn't the worst job a lad could have. In fact there are moments that help the time to fly by, and almost make the hours and the pay seem worth the aggravation.
This blog will contain a selection of anecdotes from my nightly interaction with various club attendees. Please note that most of these happened before any alcohol had been consumed. Before I get to the stories, however, I need to give you all some background.
Cover charges are a funny thing. Some people cannot bear the idea that they might have to spend a few dollars to get into a club. In fact, that's the very idea of a cover charge. If you're the kind of person who balks at dropping a few bucks to get into the place, we sure as hell don't want you taking up valuable space inside. People will argue and curse and accuse me of sexism, racism, and everything nasty under the sun, and all because I asked them to give me five or ten dollars before walking in. The real irony of the whole thing is that most of them would not think twice about spending $50-$150 or more on a bar tab once they get inside, but for some reason, dropping a Lincoln is apparently tantamount to physical torture. Also amusing is that fact that many patrons see being exempt from the cover charge as a status symbol of sorts. The truth of the matter is that if you're not paying cover, it's probably because the bar owners have figured out that you're guaranteed to spend an excessive amount of money no matter what, and they just want to get you inside to take your earnings the easy way.
I mention all of that because this past weekend was a lot worse than usual when it comes to people whining about cover charges and dress code. Which reminds me, I need to talk about dress code. The official policy from the (now ex-) manager is twofold. His exact words to me were "no thug shit, they've got to look respectable--except for the rednecks, they spend a lot." The second part of this twofold master plan is "If they're black, find a reason." What he means there is that I should find a reason not to let them in. I should clarify that a number of our best customers are a group of local black men who come in and dance and spend quite a bit of money while making the club a better place to be. These guys never pay cover when I'm at the door (I used to coach wrestling with one of them,) and the owner would probably be pretty unhappy if I turned them away. The (now ex-) manager has decided that they don't count as "black." No, to him, only violent, drug-dealing thugs are really "black." Urbane and well-heeled locals are apparently colorless. It's hard to believe that it's 2007 sometimes.
What's funny about this is that I don't really enforce either portion of that policy. First of all, there's no way I'm going to enforce a racist policy. Period. Second of all, as long as you don't look like a bum, I really don't care about your fashion sense. Just one more irony in the whole scenario is that the (now ex-) manager loves the fact that I bring in so much money when I work the door, which is most likely due to the fact that I don't bother to enforce his policies. The only policies I DO enforce when it comes to dress code are:
1. If you are wearing one of those sundress-looking long-ass T-shirts, you have to tuck it in.
2. Take off your hat.
3. No jerseys, unless you just came from the game and are wearing the local team colors.
4. If your pants are hanging off your ass, pull them up.
5. No wife-beaters (the shirt, but that would also go for the action)
6. No offensive slogans on your clothing or anything that will cause a fight.
7. Once you're inside, if you want to untuck your shirt, pull down your pants, and put on your hat, I really don't give a damn, just be respectful when you're in my immediate presence.
So as you can see, I don't usually deny anybody admission, and I usually don't charge anybody extra unless they are being an exceptional ass. I just ask them to do what it takes to comply and to dress up a little when they come back. Almost without exception, they do.
Yet even with such a lax and permissive policy, I still get crap about it every night that I work the door.
One young man strolled up wearing an oversize Eagles football jersey. I stopped him at the door and told him that I couldn't let him in wearing a jersey.
Him: "What if I was white peoples?" (sic)
Me: I couldn't let any of you wear the jersey.
I don't think he got the joke.
One young lady had a particularly rough night on Friday night. My guess is that she was using something else, maybe G, because after only three drinks she got so plastered that she passed out on the bar, vomited all over herself, and started making high, keening noises while crying for her mommy and drifting in and out of consciousness. This despite being of ample mass to handle a couple of drinks pretty easily. She had to receive constant attention to keep her from hurting herself until her mother showed up. Did I mention that this was at 2 am, and the girl in question is in her mid-to-late twenties?
As an aside here, I asked the (now ex-) manager how he knew the number for the girl's mother. His response? "I used to (have sex with) her back when she was on meth. She used to be pretty hot. It's a shame the way she's blown up."
He's a prince among men, that guy...
So the next night, the girl comes back AGAIN. She was not embarrassed in the least when the barback and I tried to convince her to go back home by relating some of the shameful details of her behavior the night before. "Ha, ha--was I really that bad? I can't remember at all!" This was said with a laugh and a huge smile.
I tried to drive the point home. "We had to call your MOTHER, who had to get out of bed at 2 am to drive down here and pick you up!"
"Oh, it's totally cool," she said, giving us each a reassuring pat on the arm. "She's used to it. She sleeps in her clothes now, so it's no problem!"
Then she walked into the bar, head held high. Something to be proud of, that.
Many people are surprised when they move to GA and find out that we stop serving alcohol at midnight on Saturdays. This is a "blue law" left over from a bygone day that is surprisingly unlikely to be overturned here in the Bible belt.
The way the club handles this law is that they allow people to buy several drinks at a time before midnight, and then they stay open and allow people to drink until 2 am. This is significant because if you arrive after midnight, you can't buy anything. In light of this fact, I double the cover charge at midnight, because we don't want people just coming in and using our place as a free after hours hangout.
Many people are surprised when they show up and I ask them for more money than usual and then tell them that they won't be able to drink. I explain the law and the situation, at which point they are free to either pay or leave.
One woman, who showed all of the signs of being a drugged up, past her-prime, day-shift stripper, gave me an extra helping of crap about it, but she finally paid up and I let her inside. Later on, she came outside to find me again and complain about a law that I didn't pass and a club policy that I didn't invent. I gave her my usual response to people who want to debate the issue.
"Think about that the next time you vote, and don't let anyone into office who wants to restrict your freedoms."
She turned to me with a smug smile and said, "Well I have a felony, so I can't vote. What's that do to your little argument?!" Satisfied, she grinned from ear to ear, turned on her heel, and walked back into the bar.
She sure showed me.
We have a small, but loyal contingent of British nationals who patronize the bar, two of whom are wealthy lads of Indian descent who hail from London. They periodically bring cousins to the club, and recently started bringing an uncle who is newly arrived to the states. In addition to being really great guys, they are frequent customers who spend quite a bit, so we try to make sure that we take proper care of them and that they are always treated well.
One large group of young lads had finally been admitted after griping and haranguing over the cover charge for a good long while. Almost immediately after they had walked into the courtyard, the aforementioned uncle walked into the club with no more than a shake of my hand and receipt of a welcome. This infuriated the youngsters, who had just parted with a fair sum of money to gain entrance.
"How come we have to pay, and he doesn't? What the fuck makes him so special?"
Tired of having the same discussion over and over, and feeling no need to justify myself to these hooligans, I played the race card.
"South Asians don't pay at this club!" I responded. Not technically true, but I love messing with the rednecks.
"Asians?" Came the reply. "That's bullshit! He don't even look Chinese!"
I started laughing so hard they just gave up and went inside.
Who came first, the idiots or the drunks?
I think the drunks were always idiots. They just use the alcohol to turn their own volume up.
Something to ponder, no? Comment away...
When Tolerance Attacks! (August '07)
You all know what I'm talking about...when you want to finish off that twelve pack, but instead you pass out in a heap on the laundry room floor because your body just couldn't keep up.
Alright, that's not at all what I'm talking about, but if we don't get silly once in a while this won't be any fun for any of us.
What I AM talking about is this bit of silliness that's been kicking around the blogs and B-level news agencies for a few days.
I've taken this from http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1275192007
NHS staff told to eat away from desks for Ramadan
HOSPITAL staff in the Lothians have been told not to eat at their desks to avoid offending Muslim colleagues during Ramadan.
NHS Lothian has advised doctors and other health workers not to have working lunches during the 30-day fast, which begins next month.
The health service's Equality and Diversity Officer sent an e-mail to all senior managers, giving guidance on religious tolerance.
This includes ensuring Muslim staff are given breaks to pray, and time off to celebrate Eid at the end of Ramadan.
It is understood they also advised hospital managers to move food trolleys away from areas where Muslims work.
An NHS spokesman said he could not confirm what was in the e-mail.
Jim McCaffery, director of acute services and workforce at NHS Lothian, said: "This e-mail was circulated to a number of senior managers as we continue to promote cultural awareness in our organisation."
But the move has angered many doctors and politicians, who say it is taking religious tolerance too far.
Bill Aitken, Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, was reported as saying: "Frankly, this advice, well meaning as it may be, is total nonsense.
"This is the sort of thing that can stir up resentments rather than result in good relations."
Now, this was unfortunately not a huge surprise, nor has this kind of church/state relationship been limited to the UK. After all, many of us probably still remember when public schools only served fish or cheese pizza on Fridays. Just like this Scottish case, it wasn't a law, just a strongly encouraged position.
So my problem isn't with the fact that this is a pro-Islamic corporate suggestion, nor is my problem the fact that they are messing with lunch--although any authoritarian meddling with food does not sit well with me.
My problem is that this is yet another case of "organizational authority" trying to push a certain morality upon the average citizen. When Bush references God in a speech, or the congress starts a session with prayer, there is a big flap about "the separation of church and state." When a law that addresses sexual practices is discussed, there is a big debate about "legislating morality," but when a laws are passed that literally makes it a crime to call someone a mean name, there is almost no backlash.
And I guess that's a whole different problem.
In any case, tolerance should be taught within the home, and when it isn't taught, or isn't taught properly, people should be able to work it out on their own--you know, like people have had to for generations.
I remember being a kid in public school in Rhode Island. I saw T-Shirts that said things like:
"Silly rabbit, Trips are for kids!" (showing the Trix Rabbit and a bunch of mushrooms)
"Silly Faggot, Dicks are for chicks!" (also showing the Trix rabbit, but no penises)
"Pave the Bay" (a pro-skater shirt that riffed off the environmental movement)
Countless shirts with pentagrams, upside down crosses, and anti-Christian slogans
Torn and upside down American flag patches (SK people, think O.J.)
Foxy Lady shirts (a strip club), Big Johnson Shirts, I got the Crabs at... shirts, and about a thousand other sex-related and supposedly "misogynistic" shirts.
And those were just the shirts. Most of us used what would now be termed "hate speech" on a daily basis as part of our regular conversation. There was almost never any hatred or even ill will involved. We just engaged in a lot of verbal jousting and enjoyed making fun of each other--which, along with sarcasm, is a proud Yankee tradition.
You know what we did when something offended us? We ignored it. In the most extreme cases, we said something about it to the person who was bothering us. To my knowledge, the only action the administration ever took was to make the kid wearing the "silly faggot..." shirt turn it inside out for the day and promise not to wear it again. In short, they applied a sensible and reasonable approach, thereby finding a decent and appropriate solution to the problem, and that was the last we heard of it.
Today, kids can face suspension, expulsion, and even legal charges for wearing and saying the things we wore and said as a matter of course.
Is that progress?
You know, when the current administration taps phone lines to listen to your Aunt Edna talk about her gout, that's considered invasive government and a step towards totalitarianism--and rightly so!
So why is charging a child under hate crimes laws for saying a naughty word considered responsible legislation?
Alright, I've been rambling for a while and I'm not even sure how I got from Ramadan and lunches to offensive t-shirts and "hate speech" laws.
The fact is, I'm sick of government and corporate interference in our daily lives, and I know I'm not alone. Some might argue that the lunch thing in Scotland is just a suggestion. Well, those who have worked in corporate environments know damned well what happens when you ignore "suggestions" from on high. You get Shanghaied by the HR goons, and the next thing you know, you're out on your backside with a bad reference.
This isn't even addressing the fact that this is a medical environment, and many of the professionals are eating lunch at their workstations because they don't have time to go take lunch elsewhere.
Tolerance and mutual respect are probably good thing overall. Government and corporate interference in our lives is pretty much always a bad thing. Mix them together, and it's a very, very, very bad thing.
We didn't arrive in 1984 by accident, people, and it sure as hell wasn't only a conservative agenda that got us here. Maybe it's time to wake up, and trade government authority for personal responsibility.
Alright, that's not at all what I'm talking about, but if we don't get silly once in a while this won't be any fun for any of us.
What I AM talking about is this bit of silliness that's been kicking around the blogs and B-level news agencies for a few days.
I've taken this from http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=1275192007
NHS staff told to eat away from desks for Ramadan
HOSPITAL staff in the Lothians have been told not to eat at their desks to avoid offending Muslim colleagues during Ramadan.
NHS Lothian has advised doctors and other health workers not to have working lunches during the 30-day fast, which begins next month.
The health service's Equality and Diversity Officer sent an e-mail to all senior managers, giving guidance on religious tolerance.
This includes ensuring Muslim staff are given breaks to pray, and time off to celebrate Eid at the end of Ramadan.
It is understood they also advised hospital managers to move food trolleys away from areas where Muslims work.
An NHS spokesman said he could not confirm what was in the e-mail.
Jim McCaffery, director of acute services and workforce at NHS Lothian, said: "This e-mail was circulated to a number of senior managers as we continue to promote cultural awareness in our organisation."
But the move has angered many doctors and politicians, who say it is taking religious tolerance too far.
Bill Aitken, Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, was reported as saying: "Frankly, this advice, well meaning as it may be, is total nonsense.
"This is the sort of thing that can stir up resentments rather than result in good relations."
Now, this was unfortunately not a huge surprise, nor has this kind of church/state relationship been limited to the UK. After all, many of us probably still remember when public schools only served fish or cheese pizza on Fridays. Just like this Scottish case, it wasn't a law, just a strongly encouraged position.
So my problem isn't with the fact that this is a pro-Islamic corporate suggestion, nor is my problem the fact that they are messing with lunch--although any authoritarian meddling with food does not sit well with me.
My problem is that this is yet another case of "organizational authority" trying to push a certain morality upon the average citizen. When Bush references God in a speech, or the congress starts a session with prayer, there is a big flap about "the separation of church and state." When a law that addresses sexual practices is discussed, there is a big debate about "legislating morality," but when a laws are passed that literally makes it a crime to call someone a mean name, there is almost no backlash.
And I guess that's a whole different problem.
In any case, tolerance should be taught within the home, and when it isn't taught, or isn't taught properly, people should be able to work it out on their own--you know, like people have had to for generations.
I remember being a kid in public school in Rhode Island. I saw T-Shirts that said things like:
"Silly rabbit, Trips are for kids!" (showing the Trix Rabbit and a bunch of mushrooms)
"Silly Faggot, Dicks are for chicks!" (also showing the Trix rabbit, but no penises)
"Pave the Bay" (a pro-skater shirt that riffed off the environmental movement)
Countless shirts with pentagrams, upside down crosses, and anti-Christian slogans
Torn and upside down American flag patches (SK people, think O.J.)
Foxy Lady shirts (a strip club), Big Johnson Shirts, I got the Crabs at... shirts, and about a thousand other sex-related and supposedly "misogynistic" shirts.
And those were just the shirts. Most of us used what would now be termed "hate speech" on a daily basis as part of our regular conversation. There was almost never any hatred or even ill will involved. We just engaged in a lot of verbal jousting and enjoyed making fun of each other--which, along with sarcasm, is a proud Yankee tradition.
You know what we did when something offended us? We ignored it. In the most extreme cases, we said something about it to the person who was bothering us. To my knowledge, the only action the administration ever took was to make the kid wearing the "silly faggot..." shirt turn it inside out for the day and promise not to wear it again. In short, they applied a sensible and reasonable approach, thereby finding a decent and appropriate solution to the problem, and that was the last we heard of it.
Today, kids can face suspension, expulsion, and even legal charges for wearing and saying the things we wore and said as a matter of course.
Is that progress?
You know, when the current administration taps phone lines to listen to your Aunt Edna talk about her gout, that's considered invasive government and a step towards totalitarianism--and rightly so!
So why is charging a child under hate crimes laws for saying a naughty word considered responsible legislation?
Alright, I've been rambling for a while and I'm not even sure how I got from Ramadan and lunches to offensive t-shirts and "hate speech" laws.
The fact is, I'm sick of government and corporate interference in our daily lives, and I know I'm not alone. Some might argue that the lunch thing in Scotland is just a suggestion. Well, those who have worked in corporate environments know damned well what happens when you ignore "suggestions" from on high. You get Shanghaied by the HR goons, and the next thing you know, you're out on your backside with a bad reference.
This isn't even addressing the fact that this is a medical environment, and many of the professionals are eating lunch at their workstations because they don't have time to go take lunch elsewhere.
Tolerance and mutual respect are probably good thing overall. Government and corporate interference in our lives is pretty much always a bad thing. Mix them together, and it's a very, very, very bad thing.
We didn't arrive in 1984 by accident, people, and it sure as hell wasn't only a conservative agenda that got us here. Maybe it's time to wake up, and trade government authority for personal responsibility.
The Game (August '07)
It's 4 pm and I'm walking across a parking lot under blistering sun. The official temperature is 100 degrees, but with humidity hovering in the high seventy-percent range, and with heat reflected off the blacktop, it feels like I'm tucked under the backside of Satan's scrotum.
I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep, having worked at the club the night before. I always try to get up at a normal hour on Saturday no matter how late I stay out working on Friday night. My ritual is probably unhealthy, but the exhaustion ensures that I get a good night's sleep on Saturday night and I'm well rested for church on Sunday morning. I'm a regular churchgoer, for those who didn't know. I'm well aware that I'm not the sterotypical Christo-zombie clone many have come to associate with the churchgoing crowd. Any pride I might take in that fact is tempered by the awareness that I'm a very deeply flawed individual. For all that I cherish my righteous indignation, the simple fact is that the average pew-filler is far ahead of me in many, many ways.
None of that matters here in the parking lot. I'm having a nice day out with the wife, and trying to stay focused on the moment. I say "trying" because my mind just won't slow down. The oppressive heat and humidity brings me back to last night. 88 degrees at midnight, 75% humidity, and I was working outdoors in a full suit and tie getup 'til four in the morning. I must have lost ten pounds, and I was barely moving. The job was actually a lot easier than usual. Less smoke, less noise, and a less feisty crowd thanks to heat-induced lethargy. One old man patted my backside on his way out the door, but even that wasn't anything more than an awkward moment and some quickly suppressed anger. He was leaving anyway, and never said a word, so what could I do?
I'm asking myself that very question as we continue to stalk our way across the softening blacktop. I stopped by the truck to drop off a shopping bag. I've just bought a few Hunter S. Thompson books that I've been anxious to read. I drop the bag on the floor next to the tuxedo I just bought for ten dollars. I have big plans for that tuxedo. I'm not sure I even know what those plans are yet, but my subconscious assures me that somthing epic may be in the offing.
Thompson is kind of a role model for me. I like my truth spiced with a dash of opinion and healthy dollop of the surreal. I value experience for the sake of experience. I laugh at the world because I just can't seem to muster up the effort to keep my head down and pretend that all of this is normal. Fuck it. Maybe it is normal, but it sure as hell isn't right.
So very little about how we live is really the way it ought to be, and still we keep our heads down and our mouths shut and pretend that this is all exactly what we were expecting all along. We ignore those alarm bells shrieking in the backs of our minds, screaming about wasted time, chances blown, and opportunities missed. We're afraid to stop and raise our heads above the current. We're afraid to stop drifting along. We're terrified that if we stop and look at our world without screening it through the filter of what we tell each other is the norm, we'll be left defenseless against the cold and unchangeable reality of that which is so very wildly out of our control.
I can't help myself. I think I've gotten addicted to that lack of control. I think I'm taking cold comfort in staring into that abyss. I'm swept along on a current more powerful than anything generated by the hand of man. I'm yanked under by the riptides of culture, education, social convention, law, chemicals, nature, and a hundered other circumstances that none of us can change. At best we can keep our eyes open and work our hardest to avoid the debris and the obstacles that litter the way. I've a habit of slamming headfirst into these hazards. As much as I might want to keep my head down and do what it takes to avoid conflict, I'd much rather rip my head above the current, laugh out loud, and scream in defiance of it all. I'm still getting carried along like everybody else, but I refuse to pretend that I don't know what's happening. I'm out of control, damn it, and I sure as hell won't pretend that I don't know.
All of this flashes through my mind in a matter of seconds as we stride from one commercial establishment to another. I laugh at the irony. I'm screaming at the immutable, and it's looking back at me with a grin. I can be disruptive, I can be subversive, and I can even be defiant, but the fact is that I'm still part of the scene.
A few more steps, and I'm through a door into an air-conditioned, concrete, steel, and glass box, one more in a long row of similar boxes lined up all around me. I drift back into the moment, and I embrace the comfortable numbness that we use to float through our every day. I slide back beneath the current, back into my insensate little cocoon--the shelter of the voluntarily oblivious. I am here to consume. I am here to smile and to laugh.
I am here to play the game.
Whether I like it, or not.
I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep, having worked at the club the night before. I always try to get up at a normal hour on Saturday no matter how late I stay out working on Friday night. My ritual is probably unhealthy, but the exhaustion ensures that I get a good night's sleep on Saturday night and I'm well rested for church on Sunday morning. I'm a regular churchgoer, for those who didn't know. I'm well aware that I'm not the sterotypical Christo-zombie clone many have come to associate with the churchgoing crowd. Any pride I might take in that fact is tempered by the awareness that I'm a very deeply flawed individual. For all that I cherish my righteous indignation, the simple fact is that the average pew-filler is far ahead of me in many, many ways.
None of that matters here in the parking lot. I'm having a nice day out with the wife, and trying to stay focused on the moment. I say "trying" because my mind just won't slow down. The oppressive heat and humidity brings me back to last night. 88 degrees at midnight, 75% humidity, and I was working outdoors in a full suit and tie getup 'til four in the morning. I must have lost ten pounds, and I was barely moving. The job was actually a lot easier than usual. Less smoke, less noise, and a less feisty crowd thanks to heat-induced lethargy. One old man patted my backside on his way out the door, but even that wasn't anything more than an awkward moment and some quickly suppressed anger. He was leaving anyway, and never said a word, so what could I do?
I'm asking myself that very question as we continue to stalk our way across the softening blacktop. I stopped by the truck to drop off a shopping bag. I've just bought a few Hunter S. Thompson books that I've been anxious to read. I drop the bag on the floor next to the tuxedo I just bought for ten dollars. I have big plans for that tuxedo. I'm not sure I even know what those plans are yet, but my subconscious assures me that somthing epic may be in the offing.
Thompson is kind of a role model for me. I like my truth spiced with a dash of opinion and healthy dollop of the surreal. I value experience for the sake of experience. I laugh at the world because I just can't seem to muster up the effort to keep my head down and pretend that all of this is normal. Fuck it. Maybe it is normal, but it sure as hell isn't right.
So very little about how we live is really the way it ought to be, and still we keep our heads down and our mouths shut and pretend that this is all exactly what we were expecting all along. We ignore those alarm bells shrieking in the backs of our minds, screaming about wasted time, chances blown, and opportunities missed. We're afraid to stop and raise our heads above the current. We're afraid to stop drifting along. We're terrified that if we stop and look at our world without screening it through the filter of what we tell each other is the norm, we'll be left defenseless against the cold and unchangeable reality of that which is so very wildly out of our control.
I can't help myself. I think I've gotten addicted to that lack of control. I think I'm taking cold comfort in staring into that abyss. I'm swept along on a current more powerful than anything generated by the hand of man. I'm yanked under by the riptides of culture, education, social convention, law, chemicals, nature, and a hundered other circumstances that none of us can change. At best we can keep our eyes open and work our hardest to avoid the debris and the obstacles that litter the way. I've a habit of slamming headfirst into these hazards. As much as I might want to keep my head down and do what it takes to avoid conflict, I'd much rather rip my head above the current, laugh out loud, and scream in defiance of it all. I'm still getting carried along like everybody else, but I refuse to pretend that I don't know what's happening. I'm out of control, damn it, and I sure as hell won't pretend that I don't know.
All of this flashes through my mind in a matter of seconds as we stride from one commercial establishment to another. I laugh at the irony. I'm screaming at the immutable, and it's looking back at me with a grin. I can be disruptive, I can be subversive, and I can even be defiant, but the fact is that I'm still part of the scene.
A few more steps, and I'm through a door into an air-conditioned, concrete, steel, and glass box, one more in a long row of similar boxes lined up all around me. I drift back into the moment, and I embrace the comfortable numbness that we use to float through our every day. I slide back beneath the current, back into my insensate little cocoon--the shelter of the voluntarily oblivious. I am here to consume. I am here to smile and to laugh.
I am here to play the game.
Whether I like it, or not.
The Tale of a Bouncing Soul (August '07)
This past Friday night started out much better than most Friday nights.
Mrs. Yankee had gotten home early, so we ate a brief dinner, slipped into comfortable clothes, and began a relaxing evening of doing nothing much at all. We played a house variation of Backgammon, a few card games (we have no TV, so we interact with each other instead,) and had just finished up a round of Scrabble when my phone rang.
Now as many of you know, I've been out of work for a while. Many of you may also know that the last time I was out of work, I spent a few nights a week bouncing to help keep food upon the table and a roof o'er our Yankee heads. Bouncing is a slang term for bar/club security if any of you foreign devils are unfamiliar with the term. Being a bouncer was a mixed blessing. It's generally very easy work, and the pay--while not very good--is not terrible. On the other hand, I have to breathe copious amounts of cigarette smoke, listen to awful music at obscene volumes...and then there are the patrons. Oh, Lord above, the patrons...
Okay, back to the phone call before I get too far ahead of myself.
I looked down at my phone and saw that the call was from my good friend Guy. Guy is not only a great friend and great person. He was also my boss the last time I worked as a bouncer.
At this point I really didn't think anything of the call. Guy and I had chatted about my employment situation before, but the club we were working for was under new ownership and not keen on hiring employees who served under the previous regime. I had asked some questions about birthday gifts for Guy's adorable progeny, and I figured that he was either calling about that or just calling to shoot the breeze.
As it turns out, I was wrong.
"Hey man, can you work tonight?"
I checked with Mrs. Yankee to see if she had a problem with me taking a sudden leave of absence from our night of fun and relaxation. She asked me how much I was going to get paid, and then told me to have a great night. I went back to the phone.
"Yeah, I can do it. When do I need to be there?"
"Twenty-one hundred. The shift runs 'til three. Can you do that?"
I told him it was no problem and hung up. I walked back over to the living room and checked the wall clock as I passed by. It was 20:03. I had to shower, shave, and get dressed. All black, dress shirt, and possibly a jacket. The "uniform" hasn't changed despite the change in club ownership. I'm grateful.
I arrive a minute or so before nine and check the place out. At first glance, everything looks to be pretty much the same. Further inspection would reveal that the club has actually improved a great deal since I last set foot therein. Guy still hasn't arrived, so I took a chair outside on the patio to await his arrival. Guy is a Pacific Islander, and runs on "island time." He rolls up somewhere near the thirty-minute mark and gives me the rundown.
I'm going to be working indoors. Oh, boy. I get to breathe the smoke. That's just fantastic.
The gig typically works as follows. Everyone who enters the club has to come in through the fenced-in patio on the exterior of the building. One guy is stationed there. That's the "door guy." One or two other bouncers work inside covering the lounge and the club, or "working the inside."
Each job has positives and negatives. The door guy gets to sit outside in the open air and consequently avoids having to breathe in concentrated clouds of smoke. The door guy is also free from the ludicrously loud dance mixes being blasted in the club portion of the establishment. On the other hand, the door guy has to handle all of the money, make small talk with all of the customers in line, enforce an arbitrarily applied dress code, deal with every jackass in line who wants to argue about the cover charge or the dress code, and make decisions about everyone who comes through and claims to "know" someone who works there.
The guy who works the inside has to deal with the smoke and the noise, and if something untoward does happen, he has to deal with it solo in a room that at times holds a few hundred people. The inside guy also has to deal with the attentions of every talkative drunk and oversexed drunkette that happens to stroll by. On the upside, "working the inside" is essentially a do-nothing job 99% of the time. Getting paid to watch people drink and dance isn't the worst job a guy could get.
I spent the first hour outside with Guy just catching up and shooting the breeze. There were private parties in both the lounge and the dance club, and the general public hadn't really started arriving yet. I checked IDs and collected cover while Guy told me about what he's been up to since he got back from Iraq. We kicked around ideas for potential employment and made fun of patrons after they moved out of earshot. You know, just passing the time.
Finally, at about 22:30, the dance club opened to the public and I moved inside. I'll probably do a whole separate entry about the different types of patrons, but for the moment let it suffice to say that every type was represented on this night. All of the regulars drank too much and smoked too much. The visitors drank too much, smoked too much, and sat awkwardly around the edges of the room, waiting for people to come up and talk to them. Everyone went through the various stages of club attendance, and apart from one migrant worker dude who kept trying to grope girls on the dance floor, it was uneventful. A quick word or two in Spanish, and Señor Grabbyhands calmed himself right down. I didn't even have to throw him out, which was nice.
I hadn't been back to bouncing for quite some time, so I was surprised at how quickly I lapsed right back into pitying and feeling sorry for the patrons. Some of the patrons were just there to "have a good time." Most of these were unaccompanied women, and a few couples. That's fine. What's not so fine is that every single one of them was dependent on getting at least a buzz to have that good time. Dance a little, do a shot. Talk to your friends, have a cocktail. Get together and do a group shot. Cheer about the fact that you did a group shot. Do another. Laugh and congratulate yourselves on what a great time you're having while leaning on your chemical crutch together. Ignore the fact that the "great time" you have while "dancing" is apparently not such a great time without alcohol, and that dancing is now secondary to drinking and maintaining that level of intoxication. Act like a douchebag in public. It's okay, your friends will support you, and none of you will have any idea what you really looked like the next morning.
Most of the rest of the patrons were there to "hook up" in one way or another. The subtext is a desperate grasp for validation as an individual. For some, the validation that comes from getting a stranger to converse might be enough. Others hope for varying levels of physical affection. Watching them interact with each other, moving through the crowds, listening to snatches of conversation, the whole effect is sobering. Many of these people are here night after night, week in, and week out. If they are lucky, some acquaintance or some stranger will imbibe just enough of an intoxicating beverage to voluntarily enjoy mutual interaction for a time.
"Maybe if someone gets drunk enough, and the hour gets late enough, someone will care about me. Maybe someone will show me some affection. Maybe someone will treat me like I matter. Maybe someone will just spend some time with me. Just for a while…"
I think that watching these same sad scenes play out over and over is the hardest part about this job. I think it always will be.
Mrs. Yankee had gotten home early, so we ate a brief dinner, slipped into comfortable clothes, and began a relaxing evening of doing nothing much at all. We played a house variation of Backgammon, a few card games (we have no TV, so we interact with each other instead,) and had just finished up a round of Scrabble when my phone rang.
Now as many of you know, I've been out of work for a while. Many of you may also know that the last time I was out of work, I spent a few nights a week bouncing to help keep food upon the table and a roof o'er our Yankee heads. Bouncing is a slang term for bar/club security if any of you foreign devils are unfamiliar with the term. Being a bouncer was a mixed blessing. It's generally very easy work, and the pay--while not very good--is not terrible. On the other hand, I have to breathe copious amounts of cigarette smoke, listen to awful music at obscene volumes...and then there are the patrons. Oh, Lord above, the patrons...
Okay, back to the phone call before I get too far ahead of myself.
I looked down at my phone and saw that the call was from my good friend Guy. Guy is not only a great friend and great person. He was also my boss the last time I worked as a bouncer.
At this point I really didn't think anything of the call. Guy and I had chatted about my employment situation before, but the club we were working for was under new ownership and not keen on hiring employees who served under the previous regime. I had asked some questions about birthday gifts for Guy's adorable progeny, and I figured that he was either calling about that or just calling to shoot the breeze.
As it turns out, I was wrong.
"Hey man, can you work tonight?"
I checked with Mrs. Yankee to see if she had a problem with me taking a sudden leave of absence from our night of fun and relaxation. She asked me how much I was going to get paid, and then told me to have a great night. I went back to the phone.
"Yeah, I can do it. When do I need to be there?"
"Twenty-one hundred. The shift runs 'til three. Can you do that?"
I told him it was no problem and hung up. I walked back over to the living room and checked the wall clock as I passed by. It was 20:03. I had to shower, shave, and get dressed. All black, dress shirt, and possibly a jacket. The "uniform" hasn't changed despite the change in club ownership. I'm grateful.
I arrive a minute or so before nine and check the place out. At first glance, everything looks to be pretty much the same. Further inspection would reveal that the club has actually improved a great deal since I last set foot therein. Guy still hasn't arrived, so I took a chair outside on the patio to await his arrival. Guy is a Pacific Islander, and runs on "island time." He rolls up somewhere near the thirty-minute mark and gives me the rundown.
I'm going to be working indoors. Oh, boy. I get to breathe the smoke. That's just fantastic.
The gig typically works as follows. Everyone who enters the club has to come in through the fenced-in patio on the exterior of the building. One guy is stationed there. That's the "door guy." One or two other bouncers work inside covering the lounge and the club, or "working the inside."
Each job has positives and negatives. The door guy gets to sit outside in the open air and consequently avoids having to breathe in concentrated clouds of smoke. The door guy is also free from the ludicrously loud dance mixes being blasted in the club portion of the establishment. On the other hand, the door guy has to handle all of the money, make small talk with all of the customers in line, enforce an arbitrarily applied dress code, deal with every jackass in line who wants to argue about the cover charge or the dress code, and make decisions about everyone who comes through and claims to "know" someone who works there.
The guy who works the inside has to deal with the smoke and the noise, and if something untoward does happen, he has to deal with it solo in a room that at times holds a few hundred people. The inside guy also has to deal with the attentions of every talkative drunk and oversexed drunkette that happens to stroll by. On the upside, "working the inside" is essentially a do-nothing job 99% of the time. Getting paid to watch people drink and dance isn't the worst job a guy could get.
I spent the first hour outside with Guy just catching up and shooting the breeze. There were private parties in both the lounge and the dance club, and the general public hadn't really started arriving yet. I checked IDs and collected cover while Guy told me about what he's been up to since he got back from Iraq. We kicked around ideas for potential employment and made fun of patrons after they moved out of earshot. You know, just passing the time.
Finally, at about 22:30, the dance club opened to the public and I moved inside. I'll probably do a whole separate entry about the different types of patrons, but for the moment let it suffice to say that every type was represented on this night. All of the regulars drank too much and smoked too much. The visitors drank too much, smoked too much, and sat awkwardly around the edges of the room, waiting for people to come up and talk to them. Everyone went through the various stages of club attendance, and apart from one migrant worker dude who kept trying to grope girls on the dance floor, it was uneventful. A quick word or two in Spanish, and Señor Grabbyhands calmed himself right down. I didn't even have to throw him out, which was nice.
I hadn't been back to bouncing for quite some time, so I was surprised at how quickly I lapsed right back into pitying and feeling sorry for the patrons. Some of the patrons were just there to "have a good time." Most of these were unaccompanied women, and a few couples. That's fine. What's not so fine is that every single one of them was dependent on getting at least a buzz to have that good time. Dance a little, do a shot. Talk to your friends, have a cocktail. Get together and do a group shot. Cheer about the fact that you did a group shot. Do another. Laugh and congratulate yourselves on what a great time you're having while leaning on your chemical crutch together. Ignore the fact that the "great time" you have while "dancing" is apparently not such a great time without alcohol, and that dancing is now secondary to drinking and maintaining that level of intoxication. Act like a douchebag in public. It's okay, your friends will support you, and none of you will have any idea what you really looked like the next morning.
Most of the rest of the patrons were there to "hook up" in one way or another. The subtext is a desperate grasp for validation as an individual. For some, the validation that comes from getting a stranger to converse might be enough. Others hope for varying levels of physical affection. Watching them interact with each other, moving through the crowds, listening to snatches of conversation, the whole effect is sobering. Many of these people are here night after night, week in, and week out. If they are lucky, some acquaintance or some stranger will imbibe just enough of an intoxicating beverage to voluntarily enjoy mutual interaction for a time.
"Maybe if someone gets drunk enough, and the hour gets late enough, someone will care about me. Maybe someone will show me some affection. Maybe someone will treat me like I matter. Maybe someone will just spend some time with me. Just for a while…"
I think that watching these same sad scenes play out over and over is the hardest part about this job. I think it always will be.
Well, I'm back to being a bouncer again. (Aug. '07)
It's 04:30. I got home 30 minutes ago, and I just finished showering the smoke, sweat, and assorted nasty off of me. This isn't a full-time gig, but it's work, so I'm back to babysitting grown-ups again after a two-year-plus hiatus.
If I get to typing right now, I'm sure to wake someone, so this is just a teaser and a way to remind myself, but y'all are definitely getting a few blogs out of this. The human condition is fragile at the best of times, but the bar/club patron is definitely approaching humanity at its most pathetic.
I don't know whether to laugh at, cry over, or fear for humanity in general right now.
Whatever I decide, you'll read about it here, and soon.
~The Yankee
If I get to typing right now, I'm sure to wake someone, so this is just a teaser and a way to remind myself, but y'all are definitely getting a few blogs out of this. The human condition is fragile at the best of times, but the bar/club patron is definitely approaching humanity at its most pathetic.
I don't know whether to laugh at, cry over, or fear for humanity in general right now.
Whatever I decide, you'll read about it here, and soon.
~The Yankee
So what would you have done? (June '07)
I'm going to give you the abbreviated version because I frankly just don't have the energy to write it all out.
Lets' go back to the late '90's, when the Yankee was in school at a little religious college in the mid-Atlantic region. The student body was not particularly diverse in race or religious creed--as is the case with most such colleges--or even in terms of geographic origin. Most of the students came from the same state in the same region. This place was insular, and a somewhat protected world.
Now, there was one gent at this school who was a little different. I'll call him "Joe." Joe was a black man from a military family, who carried himself with a little more confidence than the average student. Joe and I never became close friends, but since we both had military backgrounds and such, we did hit it off in a casual way. After college, Joe even helped me get a job where he worked. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
One summer, Joe stayed at the school for summer classes. Another student--we'll call him "Frank"--let Joe borrow his computer. Frank was a good guy with a bit of a reputation as a troublemaker. Joe was at this time a model student. Joe was the minority student who made it to the cover of every brochure, who led tours for prospective students, and who became part of the student leadership.
I say all of this because after the summer was through, Frank got his computer back and set himself up in his room. Frank had a screen saver program that took image files from his hard drive, and randomly scrolled them across the screen. As Frank was getting settled in, one of the Deans came by. It was at this moment that the pictures on Frank's computer screen took a nasty turn. Child Porn began scrolling across the screen. Most of it was homosexual child porn at that--an extra big "no-no" at a religious college.
Frank was in deep trouble. Despite his protests, the administration was ready to throw him out on his backside and call the authorities. Luckily, thanks to the work of a few clever and level-headed tech. guys, Frank was able to prove his story and thus exonerate himself. To my knowledge, Frank never received anything resembling an apology from the administration.
At this point, Joe was on the hotseat. Joe did not like being on the hotseat, so Joe did something that was in my opinion extra shady. Joe told the administration that he was being set up and singled out because he was black, and that if they kicked him out of school, he would slap them with a racial discrimination lawsuit.
The school is rather paranoid about negative press, and some of you may remember that in the late '90's, hate crimes legislation, etc. were big topics in the news. The school saw negatives no matter which way they turned, so guess what they did?
The school put Joe on some kind of super-secret non-probation and bascially let him keep going to school and living on campus with no punishment, though I believe he did have to step down from a student leadership role.
Most of the student body had no idea about any of this at the time that it happened.
As the years flew by, there were many rumors that Joe fancied other lads, and especially younger ones. I dismissed most of these as silly rumors. After all, I knew Joe in a casual way, and he'd never mentioned anything to me!
Joe graduated when I was a junior, and went on to work in a juvenile detention facility. A year later, Joe called me and asked me if I would like a job there, too. I accepted, and began my first stint as a juvenile jailer. For those that might not have figured this out, this was a job where we worked closely with troubled young boys.
That same year, a number of disturbing revelations came up regarding Joe. I played soccer during college, and thus got to know several of the guys on the team. This included several younger, "prettier" guys.
That last year I found out that when Joe was an RA, he had several of these boys come to his room at different times for "private meetings." In these "private meetings," Joe would break down and tell them that he was "struggling with lust," but that if they sat there and watched while he masturbated, the shame might convince him to stop--especially if they were willing to touch him in some way while he performed.
I know that many of you are aghast at this point, and are wondering how any college-age male could be taken in by such a weak story. Remember that this is an insulated locale with a very naive population, by and large. These lads had no real concept that they were dealing with a sexual predator who was using them for some kind of gratification. Some got uncomfortable and left, some got uncomfortable and stayed because they thought they were "helping" him. Most were left feeling confused and upset, but had no idea what to do about it...so they kept quiet.
Now it was several years later, and Joe was gone, so these guys felt they could talk about it. I didn't tell them that I was working with Joe. I just listened and got more and more uneasy as time went on.
I asked a few of them if they would be cool with telling the authorities. They all said "no way," and acted really embarrassed. That's part of the game that these abusers play--they make the victim feel ashamed, so that no one comes forward.
Now here's the crux of the matter:
Joe came to me at work one day and told me that he was leaving. He said he had just been hired to become "Dean of Boys" at a large local private school. I stayed calm on the outside, but inside I was freaking out. By now I knew about the child porn on the computer and the "private meetings" with the younger guys. I had a fair idea that Joe was a danger--and especially to young boys. I saw the fox being led to the hen house on a red carpet.
But what could I do?
I knew so much, but I couldn't prove any of it. The people involved wouldn't come forward, the school would not discuss the affairs of former students, and I knew that I would be in deep legal doo-doo if I came forward with an accusation and couldn't prove it. With all of the hubbub in the media at that time, I was seriously worried about being charged with a "hate crime" if my accusation didn't hold up, because I am "white," and Joe is "black," so the same charge could hold more severe penalties (by the way, this is why I am firmly against "hate crime" legislation. One crime should have one punishment, no matter who did it.)
Not knowing what to do, I did nothing.
A year and half later, Joe was on the front page of the local paper, being led out of the school in handcuffs. I don't think I need to tell you what the charges were...
Think about the world you live in. Think about the little "secrets" you know right now. What would you have done in my shoes? What will you do if the problem becomes your own?
Lets' go back to the late '90's, when the Yankee was in school at a little religious college in the mid-Atlantic region. The student body was not particularly diverse in race or religious creed--as is the case with most such colleges--or even in terms of geographic origin. Most of the students came from the same state in the same region. This place was insular, and a somewhat protected world.
Now, there was one gent at this school who was a little different. I'll call him "Joe." Joe was a black man from a military family, who carried himself with a little more confidence than the average student. Joe and I never became close friends, but since we both had military backgrounds and such, we did hit it off in a casual way. After college, Joe even helped me get a job where he worked. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
One summer, Joe stayed at the school for summer classes. Another student--we'll call him "Frank"--let Joe borrow his computer. Frank was a good guy with a bit of a reputation as a troublemaker. Joe was at this time a model student. Joe was the minority student who made it to the cover of every brochure, who led tours for prospective students, and who became part of the student leadership.
I say all of this because after the summer was through, Frank got his computer back and set himself up in his room. Frank had a screen saver program that took image files from his hard drive, and randomly scrolled them across the screen. As Frank was getting settled in, one of the Deans came by. It was at this moment that the pictures on Frank's computer screen took a nasty turn. Child Porn began scrolling across the screen. Most of it was homosexual child porn at that--an extra big "no-no" at a religious college.
Frank was in deep trouble. Despite his protests, the administration was ready to throw him out on his backside and call the authorities. Luckily, thanks to the work of a few clever and level-headed tech. guys, Frank was able to prove his story and thus exonerate himself. To my knowledge, Frank never received anything resembling an apology from the administration.
At this point, Joe was on the hotseat. Joe did not like being on the hotseat, so Joe did something that was in my opinion extra shady. Joe told the administration that he was being set up and singled out because he was black, and that if they kicked him out of school, he would slap them with a racial discrimination lawsuit.
The school is rather paranoid about negative press, and some of you may remember that in the late '90's, hate crimes legislation, etc. were big topics in the news. The school saw negatives no matter which way they turned, so guess what they did?
The school put Joe on some kind of super-secret non-probation and bascially let him keep going to school and living on campus with no punishment, though I believe he did have to step down from a student leadership role.
Most of the student body had no idea about any of this at the time that it happened.
As the years flew by, there were many rumors that Joe fancied other lads, and especially younger ones. I dismissed most of these as silly rumors. After all, I knew Joe in a casual way, and he'd never mentioned anything to me!
Joe graduated when I was a junior, and went on to work in a juvenile detention facility. A year later, Joe called me and asked me if I would like a job there, too. I accepted, and began my first stint as a juvenile jailer. For those that might not have figured this out, this was a job where we worked closely with troubled young boys.
That same year, a number of disturbing revelations came up regarding Joe. I played soccer during college, and thus got to know several of the guys on the team. This included several younger, "prettier" guys.
That last year I found out that when Joe was an RA, he had several of these boys come to his room at different times for "private meetings." In these "private meetings," Joe would break down and tell them that he was "struggling with lust," but that if they sat there and watched while he masturbated, the shame might convince him to stop--especially if they were willing to touch him in some way while he performed.
I know that many of you are aghast at this point, and are wondering how any college-age male could be taken in by such a weak story. Remember that this is an insulated locale with a very naive population, by and large. These lads had no real concept that they were dealing with a sexual predator who was using them for some kind of gratification. Some got uncomfortable and left, some got uncomfortable and stayed because they thought they were "helping" him. Most were left feeling confused and upset, but had no idea what to do about it...so they kept quiet.
Now it was several years later, and Joe was gone, so these guys felt they could talk about it. I didn't tell them that I was working with Joe. I just listened and got more and more uneasy as time went on.
I asked a few of them if they would be cool with telling the authorities. They all said "no way," and acted really embarrassed. That's part of the game that these abusers play--they make the victim feel ashamed, so that no one comes forward.
Now here's the crux of the matter:
Joe came to me at work one day and told me that he was leaving. He said he had just been hired to become "Dean of Boys" at a large local private school. I stayed calm on the outside, but inside I was freaking out. By now I knew about the child porn on the computer and the "private meetings" with the younger guys. I had a fair idea that Joe was a danger--and especially to young boys. I saw the fox being led to the hen house on a red carpet.
But what could I do?
I knew so much, but I couldn't prove any of it. The people involved wouldn't come forward, the school would not discuss the affairs of former students, and I knew that I would be in deep legal doo-doo if I came forward with an accusation and couldn't prove it. With all of the hubbub in the media at that time, I was seriously worried about being charged with a "hate crime" if my accusation didn't hold up, because I am "white," and Joe is "black," so the same charge could hold more severe penalties (by the way, this is why I am firmly against "hate crime" legislation. One crime should have one punishment, no matter who did it.)
Not knowing what to do, I did nothing.
A year and half later, Joe was on the front page of the local paper, being led out of the school in handcuffs. I don't think I need to tell you what the charges were...
Think about the world you live in. Think about the little "secrets" you know right now. What would you have done in my shoes? What will you do if the problem becomes your own?
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