don't flirt with my pregnant wife or her 70+ year old mom...OR ELSE

OK, so I’m not what you’d call macho, I’ll admit it.  My wife laughs at me when I get angry.  But every once in a while, I have these moments when I am very much a guy.  Yesterday, I took my mother-in-law and wife on a small road trip up north.  My mother-in-law lives in South Florida and though she was born and raised with the ocean (she’s originally from Jamaica) she’s not seen rock formations like the ones we have up on the Sonoma coast.  I think she was really moved, and I was moved by her movement.

On our way home, feeling great, I decided to cap the day off with a short stop in Port Reyes Station, a cute village where every other store is an antique shop (antiques are another thing my mother-in-law likes.)  In the town, there also happens to be a nice bakery that I’d heard of. (Besides rocks and old things, my mother-in-law has grown especially fond of sweets of late.)  The bakery was small and there was a long line, so I decided to wait outside. But even down the street, I could hear this dude talking up a young lady inside. I didn’t see him talk her up, but I have heard enough lines to know a pick-up in process. The guy was shameless. “You’re from Melbourne? Really? What’s it like there? I have a friend who lives in Australia, but he lives in Melbun.  Oh, it’s the same town? Melbourne is called Melbun in Australia, really? That’s so cool.”

The guy, as I would find out later, was a park ranger. I’m sure that helped his sense of confidence.  This small village was his stomping grounds, his village to be a fool in.

Because of the line (the actual line, not the ranger’s) my wife and her mother were taking a while, so I went off looking for a public bathroom and for reception for my phone. I found the bathroom but AT&T blows everywhere, and beautiful coastal villages are no exceptions. When I walked back to the bakery, I see the dude, Ranger Rick or whatever his name was, talking up my wife and her mother. I don’t know where the Australian woman went, but she had fled the scene, and now, the Mr. Shameless was hanging with my wife and mother-in-law, telling them some joke or something.

I’m not ridiculous.  I know he wasn’t really talking up my 70+ year old mother-in-law or my 7-month pregnant wife.  They are both beautiful women, but it would be hard to believe that even this letch was trying to woo them.  AND still, when I walked up on them, I am sure I pumped my chest and stared him down as if I were some kind of alpha-ape warding off an interloper.  I don’t even know where that came from. I mean I smiled. At least, I told myself to. But that’s just it. I had to actually tell myself to smile so as not to grunt or beat my chest or something.

This experience has made me glad that my first child is going to be a boy.  I’ve always laughed at those overly protective fathers. I tend to think they’re kind of ridiculous. But I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m one of those hard-ass fathers-in-the-making. God, I hope not. But how can you tell? How can you know what you’ll be at any given time until that given time comes when you turn out to be that person you otherwise laugh at. It’s scary, I tell you.

That said, it’s nowhere near as scary as my pumped chest.  Did I mention that Ranger Rick slinked off after I gave him the look?  That’s right, I’m bad.  That’s right.

There is no cure. DEAL.

OK, let me be a little nicer about it.  There is a lot of stuff written about how difficult it is to fill the page with words. I’m not a drinker, but sometimes I wish I was when I’m starting something new. That’s when I just want to have an out-of-body experience while my body taps away a first draft.  That first draft can sometimes be fun, but most times, it’s not great and I’m going to have to edit the bejeezus out of it, which I don’t mind.  I just hate getting the words out the first time.  Of course, if I were drinking, my first draft would suck it worser, so there’s that to consider.

Still, even harder than writing a first draft of anything is just putting my butt (and keeping my butt) in the seat while I tap away at my keyboard.  For a long time, I was writing at my house in the backroom. But recently, we got a washer and dryer from my folks, which means that my backroom has become a back corner. I don’t mind. I’ve noticed I write best when facing a wall. I also have noticed that I like to write in narrow spaces, in which I can feel the walls on either side of me.  Is it from my grad school days when I used to spend hours procrastinating in a tiny carrell?  Maybe. But I think it might be more primordial.  As in, during my time of insecurity before the plain whiteness of my screen, I need a continuous hug or something. Not to make light of people with Autism, but I’ve heard there are these things you can sleep in that wrap around you and make you feel like you’re getting a hug the whole night long.  Maybe I should write with one of those on. Of course, I don’t think you can use your hands when you’re being embraced.

The back corner in my house is not bad, but even the walls only have so much power over me.  If I don’t get right to the work in the morning, I start looking for things to clean.  Dishes, clothes, back corners of the pantry, the toilet even. You name it.  I don’t think that’s primordial, though. I think it’s just sad.

Talking about sadness, the reason for my struggle when starting to write, I contend, is loneliness. Not to sound overly dramatic, but writing is kind of like death. You don’t know what’s waiting for you, and you have to face it alone.  No one is going to get you out of it. You have to find a way to cope.  So, the last couple months, my solution has been to write in coffee houses, which for some reason, focuses me.  It might be the caffeine, too.  But really, it’s the people.  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t talk to anyone except for the nice woman who makes my coffee. I don’t come here for that kind of community. I come here to work. I’m on an analogy-run here, but coffeehouses are kind of like the original non-virtual Facebook. The place is full of people you recognize who put up announcements about this or that event who are all in their own world and want to stay that way.

There are a few disadvantages to this set-up–of course there are. First, there’s the cost. I try to be cheap. A double espresso costs about 2 bucks, which is not bad, though sometimes I give in and get a vegan cookie (not because I’m vegan but because I live in San Francisco, vegan capital of Gaia.)  If I were smarter about money, I’d get an espresso maker and do it at home, and then, I wouldn’t be tempted to eat vegan hockey pucks. (If I were really smart about money, I wouldn’t spend so much time writing.)  I figure six months’ worth of espressos would be about the same as a decent machine, and if I include the vegan delights, I’d probably break even in three. BUT then I’d be back at my little back corner hugging the walls or cleaning the lint off them.

There’s also calorie intake to consider. Espresso with a couple sacks of sugar isn’t bad, but the vegan goodness wears on you.  I’ve written a lot these last couple months, but I’ve gained five pounds, so I’m going to start running more.  (Vegan baked goods = less guilt, more gut.)

Lastly, there is the problem of hours and caffeine. I have to write in the morning because of my schedule, but sometimes things don’t work out and I can only get my words out at night. Espresso late at night = bad sleep and crazy dreams, which then screws my next day of writing.

OK, so as you can see, my solution to the loneliness required by writing is problematic.  (I’m not mentioning yuppie moms and dads with their SUV baby carriages and/or African sling things.  Why do all these white women dig their slings so much?)  If you have some ideas, I’d love to hear them.  What do you all do when you need to write? Let’s start a therapy session right here. It won’t keep you up, or make you gain weight, or give you the need to scream at a yuppie mom trying to get in touch with her Wisdom.

I live in San Francisco. Because I am a teacher and tutor-for-hire, half of my trunk looks like a library. Because of where I live, the other half looks like a sweater store. San Francisco is not a big city, but the micro-climates are legion. In the course of any given day, you have to be ready for everything from California heat to arctic windstorm. At night, things tend to stabilize, which means it just gets cold. This is why we have a ton of coffee places in most neighborhoods.

But I have noticed a disturbing trend among these purveyors of java, good ol’ joe, the elixir of the Gods. The fancier the place, the worse the coffee. Many people in the know give me blank stares when I point out that the coffee roasters most famous here, Ritual and Blue Bottle being the best examples, serve stuff that tastes like burned vinegar. Recently, I met someone for a meeting at the Blue Bottle-owned cafe downtown. The person I was meeting was one of those in-the-know kind of guys, so I figured he liked Blue Bottle. I also knew that the espresso there was like puking backwards, but I didn’t want to be a downer. That, and the fact that another person-in-the-know, told me my experience with Blue Bottle was not authentic since I was not drinking something made by Blue Bottle coffee gurus.

After waiting in line (because so many people seem to love the stuff) it was my turn up at the altar of caffeine, so I asked the guru-in charge if she could make a hot chocolate for me and dump a shot of espresso in that. Regardless of what I’d been told, I just wanted a decent coffee experience. (If you’re asking why I didn’t just have a straight hot chocolate, I’m not sure. For some reason, that didn’t seem like an option at the time, which I take as a sign that I needed the caffeine to think more clearly.)

Anyway, the Blue Bottle guru looked at me like I was crazy. “We don’t do THAT to our product,” she said. “Don’t you like our espresso?”

To which I answered an unusually honest and blunt, “No. Actually, I don’t.”

It’s not just one place. If you Yelp the best places for espresso in the city, the top nine roasters all produce cups of pain that, to varying degrees, make me feel like I’m puking in reverse. These places do wonderful business. People rave. I puke in reverse. Now, either my buds are off, or I live in the wrong city for coffee, which makes me so so sad. I went to Seattle last year, and it was like every espresso was better than the last. I don’t think my wife is going to allow us to move for my coffee needs, but it’s hard. It’s hard for a man to puke backwards unintentionally.

There are still a few places that serve a decent cup of joe in town–usually, they’re old school places that don’t even specialize in coffee. I have a bakery down the street that serves something called Mr. Espresso, which sounds completely lame except that it’s so much better than the fancy tripple-roasted beans washed by fairly-traded coffee technicians in Sumatra. But the bakery sorely lacks something I need, two hings, actually: seats and wi-fi.

Look, I know I should suck it up and brew my own damn coffee, but the last few months, I have become addicted to sitting in coffee houses while writing. I’m just so much more productive sitting on dusty and dingy chairs, plugged into crappy wall sockets while sipping at my double espresso alongside the new moms and dads and their slinged children. If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, then you know that I was doing the Starbucks thing since it was so close to my house, but that sign about something called acrylamide or some such thing and how it’s in their products and might cause cancer, well that freaked me out, (Also the ventilation was horrid and my wife told me that all my sweaters smelled like crappy coffee and cat pee–she thinks all Starbucks smell like cat pee.)

I’m starting to think that it’s just a hipster thing. Hipsters like skinny jeans and stupid fedoras. I do not. Maybe they like burned vinegary pukey coffee, which you could call the coffee equivalent of skinny jeans. They’re taking over everything in town–the cheap housing, the book stores, and now the coffee places. I used to go to this other place owned by a Neapolitan guy–a f-ing Italian, and the coffee was just plain old Lavazza and it was magnifico. Then his business started doing well. He hired some hipster-chick to help now, and wham-bam, I’m puking mam. It’s a conspiracy, I’ve decided. But I won’t give into it. I will keep looking for good coffee and chairs and WiFi. It’s a dream, I know. But you gotta shoot for the stars sometimes. You gotta have hope.

I’m old. It’s official. It’s not just the achy back or the sore legs after a long run. It’s the little mental habits I’m inheriting from my parents, namely my dad.  The latest mental tick is my complete and utter disdain for litter bugs.  My anger at seeing litter is context-driven, admittedly.  I certainly don’t like seeing litter on the beach or in the redwood forests that I have been forced to hike through with my wife.  But I don’t feel angry when I see litter in those places.  My anger, my wrath, comes out when I walk to work in the projects. Often, I see some young guy in a hoodie walking ahead of me eating something, and when he’s done, he just tosses the wrapper down onto the ground like it’s no big thing. He probably thinks that his neighborhood is already full of trash, so what’s one more wrapper?  Or maybe he’s not even aware.  Probably the latter.

Either way, I can’t tell you when this feeling took over, but at some point, I started feeling it. My father is a neat-freak. When I was a kid, he had this habit of walking into my room at random times with two cards in his hand.  One had the word, “cosmos” on it, the other had “chaos” written on it.  He’d drop the former on my bed when the room was neat enough, the latter when my room wasn’t.  I almost never got the cosmos card. What can I say? My dad is nuts, and I’m not that neat and orderly.  But still, I get pissed when I see people litter where I work, so maybe I am.

My father, I’m sure didn’t think he was being nuts. He’s told me that he wanted to instill in me a sense of appreciation for neatness.  Maybe that’s at play for me when I see the young guys littering.  And then again, maybe it’s just sadness—sadness that the young men I see don’t care or haven’t been taught to care for their neighborhood.  It may not be the most beautiful place in San Francisco, but it’s a hell of a lot more beautiful when it’s not covered in trash.

Which leads me to my crime against the rich and famous.  It’s not really a crime. It’s a silly thing on the face of it, a minor act of rebellion.  (My dad was also a bit of a minor rebel.) As I’ve mentioned previously, I spend much of my weekends working in some very wealthy neighborhoods.  Another habit I should mention here, though no one inherited from my father: I always chew gum while teaching, and I always chew the same gum—DoubleMint.  When I leave a house, I often, not always, but often, throw that piece of gum out onto the street.  It’s tiny. Another habit: I only chew half a stick of gum at a time.

So I chuck the tiny piece of gum, I litter in my own way, in these very beautiful neighborhoods. And I’m not being absent-minded. I’m intentionally doing it.

Why?

I can only imagine that I’m seeking revenge for the young men in the hoodie. I’m evening the playing field.  Trash in the inner city, trash in the suburbs.

I said my dad was nuts, right?  I also mentioned I’m becoming him in my old age, so what do you expect? At least I’m not showing up with index cards and Greek words printed on them. At least, not yet.  For now, I’m fighting for social equality one half-stick of Wrigley’s at a time.

If you’re still with me, then I would like to take a slightly different tack on Joe’s question. I want to know if the kind of writing I like to do, something that some might call speculative or fantastical or magical realism, is just for white, rich people. If you’re confused about the labels I’m using, think Twilight Zone. If you’re getting pissy about my question, read on.

The reason I’m asking connects with Joe’s concerns. He wondered if a person struggling financially could afford the time and money involved in trying to break in as a writer. And if not, he feels that there will be lost voices, lost experiences, because the only people who will break through will all be too similar. I agree with that. But let’s say that struggling writer is a person of color, and let’s say that struggling writer somehow finds a way to keep producing, what then? Should she write fantastical stories or should she focus on stories about her upbringing in order to bring attention to questions of social justice?

Before I answer that question for myself, let me tell you where this question comes from. I grew up poor. I spend my non-writing professional life in the projects teaching young men and women how to pass their GED. I love them and think of them as family, but I never tell them what I do when I am not teaching them. I am just Gabe or for some who really can’t bother to remember, I am “teacher.” I have no idea what my students think of me. I’m sure most of them don’t think of me at all, but if they do, they probably think I liked math since math is what I usually focus on with them. Last year, in order to make money for the program, I ran a couple performances to raise funds for materials and whatnot, and I invited poets and writers to come out and read–an evening of poetry and music for at-risk youth–I hate the term, but it gets butts in seats. The event was successful. I found a lot of talented artists. The writers, especially, were amazing and generous. A lot of them worked with the “community.” Many of them were social workers or case managers or had taught writing in prisons. Their writing, for the most part, spoke to what it was like to be black or Latino or Asian. Race and culture, culture and race, and for a few, class was also thrown in since if you’re going to talk about inequality, class is a natural tie-in.

I do not know why race and class don’t enter into my own work. I’m interested in culture, but when I write, culture is not necessarily politicized as I feel it is with a lot of writers of color. I’ve thought about this a lot lately. I’ve wondered why it is that I don’t write as maybe I “should”, considering my upbringing. I also wonder why it is that I think I SHOULD write anything. Artists don’t usually deal with questions of duty. But there is a part of me that does–it’s the part of me that grew up poor, I think.

Listening to the poets read their work last fall, I almost felt guilty. Here, these people were edifying the young people in the audience; through words and stories, they were being role-models. Of course, there was some posturing, some overly enunciated Spanish words peppered into their work for effect, some hip-hopped rhythm in their delivery that the material didn’t always require, but on the other hand, they were sharing stuff that mattered to the young people in the audience–to my students.

As the organizer of the event, I had an out. I didn’t need to share my stuff, but even if I wasn’t hosting, the truth is I wouldn’t have felt comfortable sharing my stories about young women growing flowers in their stomachs or bears and pigs rowing after Noah’s ark (two recent stories I like). I love the kinds of stories I tell, don’t get me wrong. As a writer, I am proud of the surreal and lyrical tradition of writers like Borges, Rushdie and Etgar Keret, etc.. But surrounded by my own, by my GED kids and by my community-serving colleagues, I pull back and hide that part of myself.

There’s fear and insecurity, I know. And I’m probably giving short shrift to some of my kids who might appreciate the kind of fairy tale/fables I create, but I’m scared that someone might come up to me after I read and ask me the question I’m asking all of you: do Latinos (or any minority) write that kind of shit? Isn’t that white-people stuff?

To bring it back around to Joe’s concern that money is a barrier to hearing different voices, you can see I might be a victim of the problem he brings up. The artists of color who make it often write about being marginalized, about living on the hyphen, etc. There are exceptions, but it’s not always easy to find them. And really, when I read, I don’t want to pick up a book just because the writer’s name ends with -EZ or because her picture shows that she’s X.

And yet…and yet even if you believe that stories are important, as I do, you still might not see how a story about a man who makes women itch when he falls in love with them (another story of mine) is doing anyone any good. Who is that story for? What is its purpose? If you are struggling to keep your kids fed and warm or safe from a bullet, can you be fantastical? Can you afford to stop and listen to a story of any sort? And if you can, don’t you want to hear a story about someone living through something similar? Does the poor person tell her child fairy tales, or does she fight to teach her child what’s up, as my mother taught me?

Somehow, in my case, the lesson didn’t stick. Or maybe it did. Maybe she taught me to be who I am regardless of what others think. As a storyteller and as a person, I do think there’s more to this world than meets the eye. Take that where you will. I believe in mystery, you can call it magic,–and I’d like to think that that mystery can exist even in dilapidated old buildings and fairy tales can edify in their own way. That’s what I think when I’m being strong and confident, which obviously is not always the cas

love these guys

I love Being Human, the show and the state of being, though I’m going to talk here about the former. I should say I liked the ScyFy version when I first discovered it a few weeks back and then yesterday, I discovered the British )original) version and I LOVE it more. I’ve been meaning to write about the show (the American version) for a couple weeks now. When I first saw an episode, I was hopeful the way a kid hopes he’ll get X at Xmas. I like finding a good show, which is not always easy nowadays, but Being Human, with its fantastical premise of a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf living in the same flat trying to get on like the rest of us, makes the stakes go up for me.

It might be a phase I’m going through as a reader/watcher of TV, it’s certainly more than a phase as a writer, but increasingly, I want a story to be a tale, by which I mean, I want it to take me on a flight of fancy and whimsy. Stories about “regular” people going through “regular” times are fine. I’d like to think if the story is compelling, then I will be compelled. The Wire is still my favorite show, which aside from a documentary on Baltimore, you probably aren’t going to find stories that are more realistic than the ones presented there. So, ok, I think I’m open to all kinds of stories. But still, there’s something about the fantastical show (not to be confused with fantasy, though that can be fine)–a narrative style that seems to be coming into vogue with Grimm on NBC and ABC’s Once Upon a Time–that excites me and, most times, then depresses me after I see the show in question. I haven’t seen Grimm yet, but Once Upon a Time is proof that network TV can take a great idea and dumb it down into intellectual dust. It’s precious and funny at just the right test-marketed moments.

I can hear my old roommate’s Alabama drawl right now reminding me that I shouldn’t expect so much from a network show–he also reminded me of this when we went to see blockbuster movies. Call me dumb, but I still hold out hope that you can tell an original story and have fun AND get people to come see it. Maybe I live in a fantastic land–it’s possible I guess. That might be why I get so upset at the stupid fantastical show–more angry than I get at the stupid cop show or inane sitcom. As a citizen of Fantastical-land, I don’t like my peeps being misrepresented by stupid-heads who don’t have a fantastical bone in their bodies.

So what do I think of Being Human on ScyFy?

these guys are good, too, but...

I think it’s good. I think it has an interesting premise and the acting is solid. For the most part, you can believe that the actors are what they play and, more to the point of the show, that they wish they were just ordinary, just human. That said, there are certain cliches the ScyFy version falls into that its British counterpart does not. And it’s these differences that get at what I hope for in a story. The American version tries a little too hard to make us understand that being a monster is not so different from what we all experience day-to-day. The vampire is lonely and hungers (literally) for companionship that he can’t have because he might end up chomping on some innocent person’s neck. We get it. The show goes out of its way to demonstrate that this is like what any drug addict would go through–the addiction to blood is ruining any chance of his having a relationship. I get it. Blood is a drug. Vampires are addicts. Addicts also exist in the real world. I might even know of some or at least I’ve seen some on regular TV, thus, this character is not so foreign and, by extension, not so fantastical and, sadly, a lot safer and a lot lamer. Consider that on a recent episode, the vampire is in need, suffering from his need, and meanwhile, some poppy-song is playing as we see the montage of his suffering. It’s like Gray’s Anatomy or Private Practice with monsters.

Boo! or is it Booh? I guess it’s both in this case.

Look, I am different from a vampire. I imagine you are, too. I am not immortal. I do not need to drink blood. Do you? Send me a comment if you do because I really want to know.

I wish the writers of the ScyFy version would just tell their story and let me feel for the characters where they are, not where I am or could be potentially if I were to be bitten on the neck by some ghoul. That’s what the British version does so well. The writers on that show seem to know that people like good stories even when they are about people different than themselves. As someone who increasingly loves the tall-tale, the fairy tale, the fable as a form, I don’t need the writer to make me empathize by force. I don’t know diddly-squat about the Baltimore drug trade, but I was moved by the stories in The Wire all the same. Likewise, I don’t know what it’s like to live like a monster, but tell me his story so I can. Maybe I will identify with things about the character, and maybe I won’t, which in a way would be better. I don’t know about you, but I tend to think of stories like trips. I don’t want to go somewhere I know all the customs already. I want to go places where I see new things. Stories, apart from entertaining, are ways for us to learn and amplify our appreciation of others like trips are. That’s why stories are so important–all of them. Even fantastical stories, as long as they are well told, can teach us to be… yes, more human.

Recently, AlvaradoFrazier kindly left a comment on this blog making note of a question I kind of threw out without much thought. In that post, I asked whether or not Yoda was a wimp. That wasn’t really the point of the post, but I appreciated the follow up.  She thought it would make for an interesting post, and as they say (though I couldn’t say who they are) I aim to please.

So here’s my answer to the question: Was Yoda a wimp? No. Of course not.  The guy/not-really-a-guy wasn’t always whipping out the ol’ light saber all the time, granted.  But he had skills.

I’m not sure why he didn’t take on Darth Vader—probably because like most spiritual/martial masters, the guy knew that it wasn’t his destiny. There was another who The Force wanted for that task, and Yoda, not being a ball hog, was ok with the assist.  So, he wasn’t a wimp. He was a team player.

Have I convinced you?  I really don’t have much more to say on the matter, but if you want to take issue with my mastery of Star Wars knowledge, then have at it.  Please argue away.

While you’re coming up with your points of argumentation or if you just don’t give a two-penny damn, then here’s something else to mull over: yesterday, for the first time, I felt my son kicking/punching/dancing/swimming in my wife’s belly. Pretty amazing.  I know people say that. I know people have told me that a million times. But it’s different when you feel it with your hands. I like to think of myself as being imaginative, but I think I’m only good when it comes to stories about people I make up. When it comes to my life, I’m kind of like a rationalist—WAIT, I am remembering a fancy term from grad school for what I am—oh yes, I’m a radical empiricist.  That sounds so lame, but it kind of fits my situation. If I don’t feel it, hear it, smell it, I don’t get excited about things. I’m the kind of guy who when going on a trip, doesn’t think about the trip or about packing until the night before—unless I were going to Paris. But that’s because I’ve been to Paris.  Get my pain?

So, anyway, somehow in this brain of mine, when asking myself if Yoda was a wimp, I thought of my unborn son and I had a scary thought: what will my son think of me? Will he think of me as a wimp?

I have no idea. I hope he will be proud, but that’s vague. Specifically, I hope he will think of me as a model of manhood/anti-wimpyhood by which I mean not that I am never scared, but that I try to get up and face those fears.  I hope I live up to that ideal. I have to admit that I also hope my boy will appreciate that quality as I do, as my father taught me to.

But manhood has its flashier side. I am not a hunter. I was a decent athlete, but I don’t like football or lacrosse—manly sports. I was a basketball player and when I’m not being a lazy-ass, I run.  I am not a fighter, never have been.  I got into one physical altercation in my life, and I was bailed out of it by my older sister.  I still remember the event, and I remember that the real fear I felt was less that I would get knocked on the head and much more that I would hurt Paul—I can’t believe I remember his name.  The event made a mark, I guess.

Another childhood memory that made its mark: I remember going to a little carnival at the church my mom used to make me go to. I won a little statuette of a Viking who had a shield that said, “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”  Fitting for a carnival at a Catholic church.  Kind of fitting for me, too, though honestly, in school whenever the possible fisticuffs came my way, my motto was more like, I’m a joker, not a fighter.  Humor can get you out of a lot.  Also, I am 6’3”—that helped.  Will my son appreciate that—the humor not the height? Or will he be a bruiser? Someone who likes getting into it with people?

I get that impulse, too.  One of my favorite movies is Fight Club, and I get it when Taylor Durden says that “you can’t really know yourself unless you’ve been in a fight.”  I imagine there might be some of you who don’t get that, but I might even agree with the sentiment to a point. Not to get too weird about it, but there is something about stepping into someone’s space that changes you—it’s a type of intimacy.  There’s a beauty in it. That is why I think a lot of people like boxing or MMA. That is probably why the Ancient Greeks didn’t divide the notion of man-love and fighting prowess.

On the other hand, I work in a neighborhood with young people who get shot for getting into it.  Respect is the currency on the streets, and in the heat of a fight, when winning is everything, there are times when kids pull out weapons instead of dealing with a loss.  I pray my son doesn’t like the “beauty” of fighting too much, but if he does, I really pray he will not go up against someone who doesn’t realize that a fight is just a fight.

Can I say it now? I also hope that regardless of what my boy is like, that he will not dismiss me and my views of manhood. Odd, I am seeking validation from an unborn child. Maybe when it comes to it, maybe then, I will hold my ground. My views are my own, and he will have his. My strength will be to allow this to happen even if doesn’t appreciate that.

But what if he is a bully? I hate bullies. I can honestly say that the few times I have pierced through my fear of pummeling a person’s face, those times that I have shaken with anger, that I have been willing to harden and strike another, it has been when faced with a bully. It’s not nobility, on my part. It’s just something about the bully that makes me want to call bullshit with everything I have.  God, I hope my boy is not a bully. How would I react then? Would I bully him into non-bullying.  Eye for an eye makes the world go blind. Bully for a bully—what does that do?

I know these hopes are secondary. I know that I should really hope for my boy to be healthy and happy. I do. I do. But I have these concerns that have snuck up on me, that I would not have if I were having a girl.  I guess I can be proactive. As soon as he’s able, I will put him in front of the TV and play him Star Wars, and I will teach him the way of the world and the galaxy not so far away. Yoda is not a wimp.

Reblogged from OnLit:

Each day I receive an email from CRWROPPS, an invaluable service that delivers writing and job opportunities, and within that list are invariably another two or three announcements for contests that carry entry fees of $15 to $40. Every few days I learn that another literary journal has instituted submission fees. Duotrope, that online mecca for aspiring authors, recently added fee-based publications to its database, simply because there are just so many now they can’t be ignored. I understand the need …

i rea this a few days back, but it’s stuck with me, so i thought i’d share.

I like NPR. On road trips, even without hearing a word, I know I’ve come across an NPR station by the sound of its silence. If the station were a film, I’d say it’s the room noise that clues me in, but I don’t know what that transmission sound is called on radio. I’ll just call it The Silence.  Even the conversations are filled with It.  The silly SNL skit aside, people do speak less words per second than they do on most other talk radio. And I appreciate it.  I appreciate The Silence so much in fact that much to the chagrin of my young niece (you know who you are) I run, not with music, but with podcasts from previous shows. I think that proves my fan-status.

So this weekend, just about the time I was getting my butt served to me on a silver platter by a surly student, (see this for more details), I was listening along to On Point.  I like the host, Tom Ashbrook because he seems fair and because he has a sense of humor, which he needs. Like a lot of other fair people (by which I mean people who don’t reflexively take one side of an argument over another) he gets it from both sides. Conservative listeners (yes, NPR has those) accuse him and NPR of being biased, but then, the very next caller turns out to be some activist on the Left, and he lets Mr. Ashbrook have it because he is not skewering his Republican guest.  OK, fine. That’s the job. Mr. Ashbrook is from Illinois, farm grown. You get the feeling he grew up surrounded by people on both sides of the political divide and he knows how to diffuse situations with humor and firmness.  Have I sold the show?  I hope so.

Last week, he had a segment called Google, Facebook, and Your Privacy. It’s about the new changes that Google is going to put into effect on March 1 that affect privacy.  If you’re like me, you have seen these announcements whenever you log into GMail, and you’re probably ignored them just as I have.  Maybe the changes aren’t that important. Maybe they are. Like other On Point episodes, Mr. Ashbrook tries to put the information out there. And not unlike other episodes of On Point, the guests were passionate in their positions. Good. Fine. But then halfway through, I hear Mr. Ashbrook announce that Jeff Jarvis is going to come on to defend the changes that Google is planning, and I know I’m going to lose my NPR-powered bliss.

I detest Jeff Jarvis, which makes me kind of odd and a bit nerdy.  People usually reserve their ire for celebrities, famous athletes, people of note. Not me. In my little put-put driving around the Bay Area, spreading the Gospel of education to kids who don’t need me, I plug into NPR and get angry about a professor that no one knows–no one except for the avid NPR listener. Because if you are my brethren in this regard, you will know who this Jeff Jarvis is, and you will know why I find him objectionable.

you see the evil, don't you?

Here are some facts for the uninitiated and uninterestesd: he’s a prof at City College of New York–my wife’s ex-employer. He is a booster for new media. He has a blog called BuzzMachine.  He is also a bully. I’d be ok with this except for the fact that he doesn’t just bully other guests–experts in the field–he also bullies old people who call in to question his positions, which are questionable.  Prof. Jarvis takes the position that technology is always correct, that any concerns over privacy are old-fashioned and stem from ignorance. Whenever any of NPR’s shows take on discussions of media, the web particlarly, and/or how new media is replacing old, Prof. Jarvis comes in as the star witness to dismiss any and all objections.

I’m not against his positions. He probably has a point about our not needing to fear Facebook and Google and the rest of them.  It’s just that the guy is so damn emphatic even when he admits he can’t really defend his positions.  On the show last week, he likened Google’s privacy changes to Gutenberg’s press. But then Mr. Ashbrook challenged him and asked if that meant that along with the technology, we’d also get the kind of tumult that the press caused.  The good professor who just spoke about how only good things could arise from what Google is planning, who two minutes before got impatient with a caller who said she didn’t like the idea that Google is putting ads for diabetes medicine on her screen because she Googled information on that disease, had to admit the obvious: that he doesn’t know what exactly will come out of the changes Google is planning.

Really, Professor Jarvis? Is there something you don’t know about technology? No f*&^ing s*%t!!!!!  (I’m trying to keep the rage G-Rated.)

BREATH. OM! OK, I’m in touch with my inner Guru. Keeping it together.

I totally understand if you don’t get the anger–G-Rated or nor. This professor going off about technology–who cares? Right?  Don’t trip, as my kids would say. Well, I’m tripping. I trip a lot.  And the only way I can squelch this anger (beside ranting here) is to go download an older episde of On Point where Ted Koppel, who can sometimes be a bit of a pompous jerk himself, takes the good professor to task about his complete blindness to positions not his own.  You go, Ted. Use that pompous smugness to fight a greater evil–an evil who spells his name, J-A-R-V-I-S.

A short story followed by a question (or three) for your Sunday non-Superbowl obsessed moments:

Because I am not obsessed about football and because I am poor, I am spending my Sunday tutoring the very wealthy children of Silicon Valley. My first session today was with the daughter of a man who I’ve been told is one of the richest men in the area. I believe this by the look of his Italian villa of a house. Stereotypes, being what they are, you might think that his offspring would be a spoiled brat. Well, stereotypes have their time, and this is one of them. The young heiress is not one to be pushed too far–that much was clear from today’s session.

To give you an idea, she has gone through four high schools in as many years and I am the 7th tutor she has gone through in the last year–lucky number 7.  My job has been to lead the princess–she uses the title in her email, btw–through an independent study of her freshman English class, a class that for some reason I never asked about she was unable to complete.

As a teacher, I generally think of myself as being able to walk the line between killing a student with rules  and holding to some semblance of academic standards. I think some educators are just sticklers for the sake of sticklerness, but on the other hand, there are too many burn-out teachers who don’t care and who let their students do anything they want.

Well, Houston, I think we have a problem, and the problem is that I am crossing over. Today, as I was helping my student make her essay stronger, she kind of flipped out. The princess is moody, I knew that much already. But one moment, I’m asking her if she could make her argument better by adding a quote, and the next moment, she’s raising her voice and telling me that she’s getting frustrated and that I’m the cause.

Nothing new. I get a lot of young people getting frustrated–it’s called learning something hard.  As a result, I have learned not to be thrown by the anger coming my way.  I lower my voice and gently but firmly point out that I am on the same team and I want to help. I appreciate that learning is hard at times, and we’re all human and humans can’t always be learning machines. I get that. But I also stand my ground and let the student know that she needs to breathe and not get all aggro at the people trying to help–i.e., me.

Today, however, I couldn’t be bothered. Yes, I felt it. I felt myself crossing into the Lands of the Lost and Unconcerned.  The princess wanted to yell and didn’t want to make her essay better, and I was like, “OK, fine. Good enough.”

Good enough? Really? These are the words of apathy. These are the words of that English teacher who is a lifer and is waiting for retirement and/or death.

So here is your test, dear reader.  Don’t worry, it’s a multiple-choice exam:

Am I

A.  A wimpy teacher?

B.  Getting tired and should I hang up the chalk?

C.  Being all Yoda-like, conserving energy, stressing not? (btw, Was Yoda a wimp?  )

Your answers will be graded on a curve.