Dear Buffalo State,

I have given you a lot of money over the years. Why, you nearly even denied me financial aid this year because my graduate program is considered an undergraduate program. But we fixed everything and I forgave you. Then, I gave you money to use your gym. It is free to undergrads, but I am not an undergrad even though the financial aid office says I am. But, this was just a bureaucratic technicality, and I didn't begrudge you when I gave you my hard earned money. But I draw the line at human feces.

You see, the men's locker room at the gym should be a meditative space. Where one takes off the atire of the outside, academic world and transforms oneself to perform a new roll. And then again shower off the sweat of your labors and return again to the outside. But the tranquility required for that needed transformation is spoiled when the aesthetics of the locker room are spoiled by shit smeared on the walls and on the benches.

When I first noticed it I thought 'my, someone really must have been ill to launch filth so high up against the walls. I hope they are feeling better, and that this mess is cleaned up.' One month later and it is still there, hardened like cement. It isn't like it is hard to notice, or hidden in a locker. It is, allow me to say it again, shit smeared on the walls and on a bench! How can you miss it? But, I guess they aren't cleaning at all.

What do I do? Who should I talk to? Should I talk to one of dozens of full time program directors? Perhaps one of the legions of student workers? How about the faculty that is getting paid by me to sit in the rehab room just feet away from the offending stains?

College kids are gross and inconsiderate. I can understand grabbing a turd and getting all Jackson Pollock on the locker room. You are stupid and egocentric, how could I be upset at you, oh large child. But the staff that walks around there, the cleaning people who work in that building. It is implied that part of your job is to keep the cascading human crap to a minimum. How hard is that? HOW HARD IS THAT?

I hate this veil of tears of a world.

Two posts ago I mentioned an insanely boring class in which we have to write papers and present them. And my desire to liven up the class by talking about something sexy like prostitution or opium. But sadly everyone is against me.

The only requirement for the research was that it had to do with the Chinese Qing dynasty. Which should be super easy since that was from 1644-1911. A huge swath of time in which I whores should figure prominently.

But no.


No.


I now bemoan the state of whore scholarship. There is nothing written about it in this time period. Nothing. Zilch. Damn it! What the hell are you scholars working on? Oh ya, exciting crap like transforming local economies if fishing villages. Wow. Do you talk about that stuff at parties? The only thing fishy I want to hear about is whore vag!

So instead I am writing about the bubonic plague in southern China in the late 19th century.... ya, disease is kind of cool. But the only reason I picked it is because that is how I feel. I feel like I am infected with a dull malaise that will slowly drag me to an untimely death. A death I try to imagine as a great release during the waste of a class.

So come on academics of the world! Tell me about Manchu brothels!

Here is a video about an unbelievable large infestation of mice. It is creepy.

In high school, I was king dork of nerd mountain

You see, not having a social life, not touching vice, and having the social skills of a lifeless golem I could devote considerable time of the best years of my life to the accumulation of useless trivia. History was one such area where I could be especially insufferable. Ask (e:Jim) who was forced to sit through the movie 300 while I pointed historical inaccuracies both major and dully minor.

The first teacher I had who appreciated me eccentricities was Mr.Mahar. He was so much more than a social studies teacher. He attended conferences. His name was attached to research he helped conduct. He had a sense of humor. In retrospect he used a lot of teaching methods that I really admire and plan to use myself. But most importantly, he drank like a fish.

Teachers exist in a moral limbo. They are adults but are expected to be saints because they are models for kids, where as parents can fuck up as much as they choose. This bothers me. Teachers see kids for 40 minutes, five days a week. And they are busy doing a thousand things you have no idea what sort of adult they are. Mr.Mahar was different. We all smelled the whiskey on his breath. We all knew what he put in his coffee. But the man was one hell of a teacher. He got his shit done and he was much better than all the sober ones.

Though I never will drink at work, or actually have a little habit to attend to, I would like to have my insufferable personality spill over. To be an eccentric coot not afraid to curse or shave on a regular basis but do one hell of a job. Darn it! If kids don't learn about Stalin's love of musical comedies who will? WHO WILL?

happy friday

My Thursday night class sucks.


It is indescribably bad! But just as Dante described the indescribable torments of hell (and the indescribably boring followups on purgatory and heaven) then so too must I!

It is on Chinese and Japanese modern history, from the 16th century to the present. The professor is a Chinese historian, and so he spends about 15 minutes of our 3 hour long class talking about Japan. Even our textbooks are weighted. Chinese history: 876 pages + 100 images and maps. Japanese history: 600, no images. I don't know why he tacked Japan on when he doesn't care.

A graduate history class works like this, usually. We all read a book. Then during class we discuss that book. The professor might guide our discussion along, but generally just keeps us on task. It is a great way to run a class.

This class works like this, we read, we get a five question quiz to see if we read, he summarizes what we read and then we look at holiday snaps he took last time he was in China. Fine in a 50 minute class, torture in a three hour class.

Well, we were informed today that he would no longer be lecturing to us. And that we would be presenting research papers we have been working on. Well, no one has started their paper since it is only needs one journal article source and should be 5-6 pages long.

So I decided I am responsible not only for my own amusement and sanity in that class, but am responsible for everyones'!

Right now I have a dozen articles on Prostitution, Opium, Homosexuality, everything. If I don't use the term "hot chinese ass fucking" at least twice in my presentation I am giving myself an F. There will be descriptions of various specialty blow jobs. There will be little boys bent over the Emperor's bed. And it wont be all talk! Oh no! We will have graphic images. Ming wall scrolls of anal penetration will adorn my presentation like cherubs.



There wont be a dry seat in the house!

I was listening to Sam Harris give a lecture yesterday.

It wasn't in person, he gave it at the Aspen Ideas festival and it was rebroadcast on Word for Word. You can listen to it here . If you don't know Sam Harris he is of the recent wave of published, vocal atheists. He is down with science but isn't as big an ass hole as Richard Dawkins
Also, he is also the hottest of the best selling atheists.



I would want to get drunk with Chris Hitchens, but I would want to get Sam Harris drunk. If you catch the drift. (sincere apologies to (e:Jim))


Anyway! Back on topic. In the lecture he said that god is primarily an author of books. That is, he chooses to speak to his creation not through TV spots or telemundo soaps; rather, god wrote the Hebrew bible, added the New testament bit, and then completed the trilogy with the Koran.

He said that science submits its material to peer-reviewed journals to weed out biased research. So, religious texts should do the same thing.

I had a good chuckle. Imagining Christ and Thor(see (e:drew)'s journal) browsing through Dianetics, suppressing a chuckle at each page turn.
"Hey Quetziquatil, you have to check this shit out! It is hilarious!"
"I can't guys, Dionysus is throwing up wine again. I have to mop the bathroom up."

So, I am not actually suggesting anything. Just giving you a little glimpse into the silliness which is getting me through my Thursday.

Oh! Here is an awesome They Might Be Giants video

I am SO excited!

Being a snooty New Yorker by proxy I love me some NY Times. Their web site has been the way of choice to read it for me. About four years ago they changed their site creating Times Select: a subscription service where you can get articles about certain subjects emailed to you, their op/ed pieces, and access to back issues going back to... when ever their content becomes public domain. The first two of those services were absolutely free before that, of course.

What would I do without my Nicholas Kristoph! Or my beloved queen of snark Maureen 'I should be writing for Designing Women but instead I am a journalist' Dowd. Tom Friedman leaves a bad taste in my mouth now a days, what with the whole Iraq War RULZ thingie. And nobody blows smoke up your ass like Frank Rich (who I guiltily enjoy).

Well, starting tomorrow (I believe) we will have access to the Op/Ed pages once more! Of course, in those four years I stopped reading traditional media and became hooked on the likes of Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos and it is sad watching great giants of journalism drag their neanderthal knuckles of paleo-journalism together towards extinction with dinosaur-blog newspapers.

But at least for a few weeks I can enjoy Dowd's tangy fluff!

Ahoi,

New user (e:wwebby) has a lovely user icon that reminded me of one of the little gems I found on the internet. Yes, my lovelies, Edward Gorey presents an original teleplay of the infamous Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles.

enjoy

(e:Jim) is the freakin' BEST!

Just out of no where, for the heck of it, he gets me two books on how to teach leftist politics in the classroom. Just so show he cares. I am so happy.

Soon I will be diving into "Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom" by Bell 'ZOMG I LOVE HER!!' Hooks. and "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire: whom I have never read but always read about, like Dewey or Foucalt but less opaque.

I am so happy this weekend. I can't wait to get my hands on these suckers. He shall have to be repaid with a fancy dinner and some sweet, sweet lovin'.

My uncle James has been my hero since I cast off childhoods diapers for grander things. He lives at the tip of long island and I live at the tip of western New York, opposite sides of the same state which is much larger in the driving than one would think of the state. Well, I had a chat with him on the phone tonight and it made me supper giddy!

You see, my uncle went to school for history, like me, and so we both get really worked up talking about the finer points of the Hapsburg monarchy in the latter part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Well, he has become a sinophile of late and was very happy to hear I was taking a graduate class on Chinese history.

Well, he was in Beijing as a guest lecturer at a law school. While in China he was invited to a large, formal dinner party. He was the guest of honor and was, kind of, set up on a date with a Manchu princess. The Manchu's are the people of northern China and are a different ethnic group from Han Chinese: the largest group. They ruled all over all of China under the Qing dynasty from 1648 until the Empire was overthrown in 1911.

He and she were having chat. He asked her how she was a princes. She said she is royalty through a relation to an emperor. "Oh," he asked "which one?" and idly she told him Kangxi. Now, being related to Kangxi for a Chinese is like being related to Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt for an American. He is a big deal, considered one of the best Emperors ever.

My uncle made a face like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Do you know Kangxi?" the princess asked. He said 'of course, every school boy in America knows of the great Kangxi!" But it got better.

He also said that no American wants to learn to speak Japanese because we all believe that in 20 years everyone in Japan will be speaking Chinese. Japan will be referred to on our maps as 'East China' well, considering little acts like killing every man, woman, and child in a city of 45,000 south of Manchuko at the beginning of WWII by the Japanese my uncle was loved by them! He was made an honorary descendent of a famous Chinese general.

I love that man.

I wanted to post my reply to Jim's 'how did you find estrip' thing in its own post because I have nothing better to talk about and I am inching my way towards having 100+ posts! YA for frivolous demarcations of worth! Gotta Catch 'em All!

    I was living in a tiny apartment on the fault line between the nice west side and the horrible west side. My kitchen was the largest room in the house, and the most useless room. The linoleum floor and the drafty windows made sure that the floor was cold in the months with no t-shirt weather.
    The most obnoxious feature of that kitchen was the sink. On top it was all aluminum, new and flashy, the sort of think that keeps you from checking underneath it before signing a lease. I had many problems with my life while I lived in that apartment. I love of whiskey and opium would turn out to be lesser problems than the perpetual leak from that sink. Leaking, leaking, always leaking like 16 year old cock in the woman's department.
    As it leaked it collected into a old brown plastic bucket, cracked from the years of wet and dray, bleach and vomit. It was a storied bucket, epics are written in some indecipherable language into it's chewed corners, in the filth stuck to the chalk outline of where a price tag used to be. Well, the drip, drip sound continued and was then accompanied by the sound of water overflowing.
    I kneeled down on that cold December floor and opened the cabinet to dump out the grey, viscous fluid in the tub. And that is when I saw them. Little KGB agents.

The had been bread by Kremlin scientists to fit between the walls of heads of state's homes. To use their tiny stature to go where no man could. Thy had been waiting for years for a response from the Premier with nothing. Too small to leave and travel home they were stranded. The Cold War ended, the Soviet Union fell. And they were forgotten.

I would bring them food and vodka. We would try and talk but they spoke no English, peculiar as they were spies. Mostly we would laugh and nod our heads as we ate and drank. But when we were done I would see them hide their sadness behind a stoic face and close the cabinet door. I am sure they saw the same face on me.

Seeing them like that would make me feel helpless, a bug on a windshield. To cheer myself up I would masturbate. Estrip wasn't the porn-acopia I was looking for, but it makes me not think about the men stranded in my old kitchen.




anyway, that is my story. It is all true, every word. I have already sent it over to MGM and my team of lawyers and super villains are already talking about merchandising, including pitching this to Six Flags to be made into a ride. They tell me a part of it will actually submerge the rider under a pool of whiskey for three whole minutes! See you there.