From the Mixed Up Files of Professor Thug

School is back in session, and that can mean only one thing: teaching related posts from Professor Thug! Rejoice.

Teaching is awesome. Mostly. Any teacher worth their paycheck is also a student, constantly striving to improve. Whether it's taking classes, reading the latest research about teaching techniques, or simply learning from your own mistakes and successes. it's important to never become stagnant. Teachers need to adapt to the times and adapt to students' learning styles.

There are moments when I've reflected on a lesson or a response to a student and realized I could've done better. There are also times I've thought that I handled something really well. I learn from both situations. Everything can be a teachable moment.

I try to apply these teachable moments to my own practices. I've had many over the years, some more influential than others. A few happened before I was even a teacher.

The earliest was as a sophomore in high school. It's an example of how the best intentions can have the worst outcomes when they are not fully thought out.

I've had many bad teachers/coaches throughout my career as a student. Fortunately, I had many great teachers, too, but I believe you can learn as much from a bad teacher as a good teacher. With a bad teacher, you might not learn what they want you to learn, and you might be learning strictly out of spite, but you can always learn something.

I was playing organized football for the first time in my life. I was stuck on offensive line, a position I hated, but I wasn't yet confident enough to talk to my coaches and ask them to let me play literally anywhere else. So I stuck it out as Tackle for the full year. I practiced hard, I played hard, and I even cheered hard when I was on the sidelines, which was the vast majority of the time.

Near the end of the season, after our first loss, our coaches gathered us around for a pep talk. Some of the "stars" of the team had been complaining about playing time or something like that. The coaches saw fit to lecture us on good sportsmanship and persistence and sacrifice and blah blah blah. One coach got into a long rant about how the best players work hard without complaining. The playing time and the kudos come naturally because of effort and perseverance. If our "stars" really wanted it, they would go out there, work their asses off and not complain.

Then he turned and pointed to me: "Like Geoff here."

Oh for fuck's sake.

It didn't stop there. "He goes out there and practices every day and busts his ass. He cheers for his teammates. He doesn't sit there and whine about not playing!"

I don't know how many of the players were actually paying attention to any of this, but I do know that I was trying to hide my face and crawl into the corner. He just used me as an example of what an athlete should aspire to be, yet this asshole never fucking puts me in the fucking game. I didn't play one second that night. Maybe I should have been complaining. Or maybe, I don't know, he could have put me in the game? Does hard work and perseverance only pay off for everybody but me? Maybe the coach was just mocking me, like, "This guy works his ass off and he still gets no playing time hahaha!"

I finished out the year and never played football again. When I quit, the head coach (different guy) said, "You can't quit. You're our starting tackle!" To which I replied, "Coach, I didn't start one game. I barely played more than 5 minutes in any game." His reply, "Oh." I could tell right then that he barely knew who I was. That didn't exactly encourage me to stay, either.

Anyways, the entire experience was important for me because it taught me how not to treat students. Firstly, it's important to actually get to know your students. Secondly, if you're going to make an example of them, make sure you don't completely contradict your point with your own actions. Maybe if I played more than 4 minutes a game his point about working hard and being rewarded would have stood up. It was a punch in the face because it seemed that he knew enough about me to use me as an example of hard work, but not enough to let me play. So either I sucked or...I sucked? What was I supposed to think?

Oh, and not to mention, his stupid-ass point had no effect on the people he was trying to reach, so it was a double fail.

I didn't think I'd be a teacher at that point, but I knew I'd never use somebody like that. In general, I never use a student as an example of anything, good or bad. I've found that with writing, and with inexperienced writers in particular, exposure or attention can actually discourage them from doing their best work. People have told me directly that they changed their writing because they thought they might have to read it out loud or even simply share it with classmates in a peer review session. I certainly encourage them to share their writing, and peer reviews are mandatory, but I don't ever put the spotlight on someone if they don't want it. I might use a student's essay as an example of good writing, but most of the time I don't use the student's name. If I do, I ask them beforehand. It's just not worth possibly making a student uncomfortable. Any point I'm trying to make can be made another way.

Like this.

I acknowledge when someone does something well, of course, but I would never point someone out and tell everyone else to be like that person. That doesn't encourage anyone involved.

When I started working with kids, I didn't have a lot of instruction or guidance, so I tried to use my experiences as a student to guide me. To this day, most of what I do is try to emulate my best teachers and avoid what the worst ones did.

My first foray into working with kids was at New Britain Parks and Rec. I worked at the after school program at Chamberlain elementary school, helping kids with their homework and coordinating various fun activities for a few hours every weekday. One day, a young girl was upset about another girl making fun of her. I tried to calm her down and assured her that whatever the other girl said wasn't true. It was something about her glasses or braces or something, and according to the crying girl, it was accurate and she wouldn't accept otherwise. So I said something like, "When you get older, you realize it doesn't matter what people think. You'll look back and laugh at it."

She replied, "But I'm still a kid. It hurts now. You already were a kid so it's no big deal to you, but we have to go through it still."

Damn.

I vowed to never use the "you're just a kid/it won't matter in the future" reasoning ever again. It minimizes their feelings. Adults have the privilege of experiencing childhood and growing out of it, so we see how things evolve. They don't have that perspective. Their present is all they have, and their feelings are no less real than adults.

A few years later I was a pre-school assistant teacher. It was great, although physically exhausting. The age range was 3-and-a-half to 5-and-a-half. It wasn't exactly mentally stimulating, but it could be if you put mental energy into it. Besides proving my long-held belief that the best kids are someone else's, it taught me a lot about teaching and interacting kids. One thing I noticed was that young kids don't hold a grudge. They might start crying if you tell them no, but 5 minutes later they'll forget why they are crying and will ask you to play dinosaurs with you. You have to keep them stimulated; hence, physically exhausting.

One of the best teachable moments occurred while finger-painting. The best experiences always occur while finger-painting. Needless to say I was a master at it, and I wasn't afraid to show off my skills. Of course, working with pre-schoolers, it's more important to show them how to do something rather than show them how good you are at doing something, but I was new. And I had some finger painting skills to show off.

A girl next to me at the easels looked at my painting and said, "That's awesome!" (She was a smart kid.) Then she looked at her painting and started to cry. "I want to make mine look like yours," she said, with a full pout now plastered on her face. "I'm no good." The tears poured down her face.

I was silent. It was another Parks and Rec situation all over again, but this time, I was the direct cause of it. She was crying because of me, and crying girls have always been my Kryptonite.

The young girl next to her, who was a damn good artist herself for a 5 year old, noticed her classmate's distress. I'm sure she also noticed my utter inability to handle the distress.

She stopped painting and looked at the girl's work. Then she said to her, "It's okay Jasmine. Everybody has their own way of making art. That's what makes it beautiful. Your drawing doesn't look like anybody else's."

Jasmine wiped her eyes with her forearm and said, "Okay." Then she went back to slapping paint onto the canvas.

Ok, well...give that girl my check for the week.

That moment taught me more about teaching than most seminars or classes. Not only dd she have a factually correct response, but her tone and poise and her delivery was the perfect way to handle a tense situation. More than what she said, it was how she said it, and even more importantly, that she said it at all. She expressed concern in a way that avoided any melodramatic scene.

Meanwhile, I'm covering my face with my red and green and blue hands so nobody notices the terror and the tears forming in my eyes.

You have to reach students on their level. Oftentimes what may feel like a catastrophe can be handled with a simple, straightforward solution. "Avoid panicking" should be the number 1 rule for all teachers.

I've had many great experiences as a teacher, too many to mention. One of the best aspects of teaching is seeing students grow and become successful.

Recently I was at the bank and I saw a former student from Tunxis. He was working as a bank teller, and he told me he was studying Accounting at Central. He got his Associate's from Tunxis and was going after his Bachelor's at Central. He told me how much he liked my class and how he appreciated my help and encouragement.

Around the same time, I received an email from a former Tunxis student. She explained in detail how I helped her envision her own future...a future that did not involve school. She was working as a personal trainer or something and she was happier than ever. She thanked me for being honest with her about her performance in school. I always tell students that they need to truly examine whether or not they are ready for the commitment, in terms of time, money, and effort. Some people are just not willing or able to make the commitment, yet they sign up for classes because they think it is the "right" thing to do. It's only the "right" thing to do if it works for you personally. She realized she needed to take a different path to happiness and success, and she wanted to thank me for helping her see that.

That may not be what every educator wants to hear, but I always appreciate making a positive impact on someone's life, no matter how big or small. Students may not ever be great at a particular subject, but teachers can still educate them and make a positive, lasting impact. College isn't the right path for everybody, and trying to force everyone down that path is counter-productive. I'm very clear about the commitment it takes to be successful in my class and in college. If someone decides to continue down the path, I certainly do my best to help them succeed, no question. But if a student is taking Comp for the third time and he can barely put a coherent sentence together, school might not be for him. And that's OK.

Finally, there are some moments that make you question your profession as a teacher and sometimes even your existence as a human.

I'll only share one of those moments, and in all honesty, they don't occur that frequently. When they do, though, it is really devastating.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that there are no stupid questions. If a student has a question about something, there's a good chance other students have the same question and are just unwilling to ask it. Sometimes, students ask questions that can be frustrating because we have gone over them a few times. I've heard"what's a thesis statement?" too many times to count. I've heard "when is the first essay due" right after I just read the schedule enough times to give me an aneurysm. But I can deal with those. They are stu--strange questions given the context, but enough students ask to make me understand that it's a common issue.

However, there is one instance of a student asking a question that still sends shivers of rage and shame up my spine when I think of it. It was a stunning combination of bad timing and a complete lack of basic knowledge. If the question was asked at the beginning of the semester, I would have completely forgotten about it. In fact, it's a common, appropriate question at the beginning of the semester.

But it's also question I answer throughout the entire semester. I make the answer readily available on literally every essay's assignment sheet. It's one of the first things I tell students and I remind them every time a paper is due. After week 4, I've never had anyone ask me this question.

Until last semester. It was the last day of class. We had completed every assignment. Basically, the class session was designed as a writing workshop for students to put final touches on their portfolios. I was answering any last minute questions about revisions. A student at the front of class raised his hand. He wasn't the best student but he did all the assignments, attended almost every class, and participated regularly.

As I called on him, I was in no way prepared for his question. I thought it was a joke at first, but when I saw the look on his face, I knew that something somewhere in the space/time continuum had been completely disrupted.

The young man looked me in the eye and in all seriousness asked, "What font should we use for our essays?"

Me.

Again, if it was the first or second or even fifth week, this would be a reasonable question. If he had missed half of the classes, it might have been a reasonable question. If I required a different font for every assignment, this might have been a reasonable question. If he had some kind of traumatic brain injury, this might have been a reasonable question.

It was none of those things, and it was not a reasonable question and I think I might have frightened his ancestors with the way I stared directly into his soul with the fires of Hades ablaze in my eyes.

I could not believe it. I could not accept it. After this entire semeseter, after trying to teach these students so many things about English Composition, about critical reading and writing, about effectively expressing ideas to better engage with the world, this clowndick didn't know the most basic information? Information that had been given on the very first day and almost every day since?

Do you understand how that affects a teacher? If a student doesn't know what font to use on the last day of the semester, a fundamental requirement that had been covered over and over again, how could that student have possibly gained anything from this class? Was it all for naught? Did I just waste 3 and a half months of my time, his time, and 23 other students' time? Had my whole teaching career been a failure?

I stared at him in a silent rage for a few seconds then replied, "I'm not telling you."

He looked confused and a little sad. "What do you mean?"

"For every assignment throughout the semester I've told you what font to use. It's the same font every time. It's on the assignment sheets I hand out for every essay."

More silence and confusion. His eyes begged, "Please?"

"I can't do it. I can't tell you."

The other students looked on in embarrassment and pity. A student in the back spoke out, "Can we tell him?"

I replied, "I'm not going to stop anybody from helping out a classmate, but I personally can not tell him. I just can't do it."

Six or seven students immediately yelled out, "Times New Roman!"

He gave one of those, "Ohhhhh, right," looks and nodded his head.

"TIMES NEW ROMAN YOU DUMB BASTARD!" I yelled, lunging for his throat and stabbing him with a dry-erase marker in the left eyeball, turning his blue eye into a mess of bright maroon.

That's what I did in my mind anyway. I would've felt a lot better if I could've at least thrown something at him though. Instead I just nodded and said, "thank you everybody." And I meant it. The pity they all had and their immediate desire to help him made me feel a little better. They seemed just as shocked as me. So maybe it was just him. But holy shit, talk about a moment that makes you question everything. If I can't successfully instill one of the most fundamental rules of my class, how good could I possibly be?

Again, I think it was mostly just him, but it does speak to one of my beliefs about teaching. The teacher is only as good as the student. There are certainly great teachers out there and there are ways of teaching that are more successful than others, but a majority of people will fail or succeed no matter who teaches them. I know many teachers don't share that view, but I firmly believe it. My three hours a night for 15 weeks isn't going to overcome the 165 other hours of the week in which you are doing anything but learning. I simply do what I can for those three hours and it's up to each student to do the hard work inside and outside of class that truly helps them learn.

That's not a condemnation of teaching. At all. Teachers are some of the most important people in any society. But as I learned with that little girl in pre-school, encouragement and making a positive connection generally has more of a long-lasting impact on students than whatever specific subject you are teaching. My favorite teachers are my favorite teachers because of how they taught, not what they taught, and that is a lesson I take with me to class every day.


I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

My Summer Jobs: Finding Tadpoles, Dead Babies, and the Motivation to Succeed in School

I've already discussed my first job and the life lessons it taught me. That post was so popular it warranted a sequel!

My second job was at Mobil in West Hartford during the summer after I graduated high school. I didn't pump gas or do anything with cars, I just worked the register and took inventory of the small store. I also had to close and lock up by myself, so it was beneficial in the sense that I learned to handle a lot of responsibility. Other than that, it was exactly as unremarkable as you'd expect. Two memories stand out: another employee, a woman in her 20's from Washington, D.C., told me about go-go music, a genre I had never heard of at the time; and one night I took a cigar from the glass case behind the register and smoked it in the garage next to the store. I got about 8 puffs in and gave up.

That fall I went to Storrs. I worked for UConn's dining services off and on for the four years I attended. It sucked and I gained no skills whatsoever (I was the best grilled cheese chef in the world long before working there, word to Emeka Okafor). However, I often ate for free, so I guess I got something out of it.

The summer after my freshman year I worked for the West Hartford Public Works department. I mostly sat in the passenger seat while an old racist white man drove around town looking for potholes to fill in with the tar we had in the bed of our big yellow truck. We didn't look very hard, mind you. Oftentimes, he'd park in front of his house and go inside while I waited in the truck. I never knew what he was doing, but I'm pretty sure there were no potholes in there.

After a couple of weeks, I was given a truck and one responsibility: mark all the storm drains in the city. Me and another young part-timer drove around town and spray painted orange marks in the middle of roads. These marks indicated the location of storm drains, which let plows know where the drains were during the winter. It was extremely monotonous. It was always hot. We worked from 6am-2pm, so we were always tired. Before summer ended, we had to do every single road. Fun fact: there is never a good time to spray paint a main road.

Once we got into a groove and figured out what we were doing, my slacker training kicked in. For the first couple of hours each day, we'd find a secluded parking spot, turn on the air conditioning, crank up Howard Stern, and rest. When I saw another truck from our department doing the same thing in our "secret" parking lot one day, I knew we had nothing to worry about. It amazed me how many other town and state vehicles we saw there. More than anything else, this job taught me that slacking is acceptable and often expected, especially at a town job.

The next summer, there were no openings in that department so I worked with Leisure Services. Most of the employees I worked with were part-timers the same age as me. Our headquarters was at Buena Vista golf course, but mostly we took care of the public pools in West Hartford. Each part-timer was assigned one pool, and I got Beachland. We had to test the pH levels and clean the locker rooms every day, and we had to vacuum the pools every other day. I always did everything I was supposed to do. At first, I took my time, and I would get back to Buena Vista around 10am. Then I got faster and faster at everything, but instead of going back to Buena Vista at 10, I would just hang out at Beachland for a while, sitting in my car listening to Howard Stern.

Basically, for about 4 summers, I was a paid Howard Stern fan.

We shared a special bond...

Before the pools were filled for the summer, we had to clean them out, and there were plenty of dead squirrels and various trash in the empty pools. Once, we found a dead squirrel underneath a fridge in the lifeguard's room. We had been working there for about a week when we finally found where the vile, stomach-turning odor was coming from.

Some of the pools needed to be painted before they opened. That was a job we all hated because it was inevitably hot and bright, and we were in these giant concrete holes that kept getting brighter and hotter as we applied layer after layer of white paint. It was very disorienting and we had to make sure to occasionally walk out of the pool to regain our senses.

It kinda felt like this at times...

Anyone who works with public pools knows there is inevitably going to be some poop. I found poop only once in the pool, because I was usually gone by the time people got there and lifeguards were on poop patrol during the day. More often, I had to deal with the poop, and discarded poop-filled underoos, in the locker room's stalls. I figure that balanced out all the Howard Stern.

After the pools were taken care of, everyone went back to Buena Vista, where we had a lot of random duties (as opposed to the random doodies at the pools ha!). Mostly we mowed grass. We also had to clean the headquarters where we stored our equipment. Sometimes we'd go with our boss to other golf courses or parks around town to fix or clean something. On the good days, when the boss wasn't around much, we would soup up the maintenance golf carts and drive around the course recklessly. We beat the hell out of those carts. I'm seriously shocked they didn't just fall apart. One time, when I was driving myself around and trimming the grass around the golf tees for the 5th time in a week, I zoomed down a hill and took a sharp turn at the bottom. Of course, I tipped over into a small ditch. I couldn't pull it out myself but a couple golfers walked by and helped me get it back on all fours before my boss found out. I took it a little easier around corners that day.

Once every summer we had to scrape the algae out of the pond at Buena Vista. About 4 or 5 guys held the ends of a long thick rope. We'd walk on opposite sides of the pond along the edges, with the rope taut above the pond. When we got to the middle, we'd slowly lower the rope until it touched the surface. Then we'd walk together towards one end of the pond, dragging the rope as algae slowly piled up behind it. Once we got to the end, we'd use rakes and pitchforks to drag the giant algae clumps out of the water. We did that a few times until we could finally see the water in the pond again. There had to be 3 tons of algae. It was slick and gooey with a foul odor. It was also full of insects, and best of all, tadpoles of every evolutionary stage. There were big, fat, green slimy balls with no features; there were green blobs with a fish tail and semi-developed eyes; and there were even green orbs with long frog legs. Some were still living and trying to swim or jump or...something.

Stare into your soul?

We'd toss the few living ones back into the pond. The dead ones we'd pick up and toss at each other, obviously.

Our boss was an interesting guy. He was meticulous, to say the least. His truck and his work area were impeccably clean. He was always on the go, always working. Basically, he was the complete opposite of the guys I worked with at Public Works. He was the antithesis of a town/state employee. Some of the other full-timers even made fun of him because he worked so hard (or worked at all). But he did instill in me attention to detail when cleaning. I still don't enjoy cleaning (who does?) and when it comes to my own place I can still be messy, but when it comes to my workstation, I've noticed I'm definitely more diligent than most. When I first started working there, sweeping the corners was a big joke to kids who had worked with him before. They all had the experience of sweeping for hours only to have Jimmy come and tell them they missed the corners, which they absolutely had. I still notice the dirt in the corners of any room I enter.

He also had catchphrases. "God Bless America!" was his go-to response to everything. A guy cut him off in traffic? "God bless America!" A kid showed up late for work? "God Bless America!" He got an extra McNugget with his lunch? "God bless America!"

Another catchphrase was, "Good to go, guy!" That meant he was ready to move on to the next activity. And yes, he called everyone guy. That still annoys me.

I worked for him and Leisure Services for 3 summers, including after I graduated college. That year I stayed on into the fall, as I learned that a Bachelor's in English isn't the most practical degree.

Although the pools were closed and the golf courses were winding down, my boss found plenty to do. He went all over town, providing his maintenance expertise to every building that needed it. And, apparently, they ALL needed it.

One place we often went was the cemetery. As a kid, I played in the cemetery a lot. It sounds morbid now, but at the time it was just a wooded area where we could ride bikes and explore in peace. So it wasn't too abnormal for me to spend time there. Not like I had a choice in the matter.

My boss had to (chose to? I really don't know if this was part of his actual job or more of a hobby) measure different burial plots for new caskets. Each plot needed a certain amount of space around it. Whenever they wanted to put a fresh dead body underground, they had to make sure they weren't going to accidentally dig someone else up. There was a map of the cemetery that showed where every casket was supposed to be, but the ground isn't always 100% stable and the records were very old. If one measurement was off, everything was off. Since x-ray technology was unavailable, my boss used an old fashioned method. He took a thin metal rod, about 6 feet long, and shoved it into the ground. If there was no resistance, there was no casket. To measure a new plot, he poked the ground in several spots until he found the surrounding caskets. That let him know how much space was available for a new one. 

This was considerably creepier than my childhood bike rides through the cemetery, but I figured the chances that he would start a zombie apocalypse by crashing through an ancient casket were slim, so I was mostly okay with it.

One day, it became not okay. Not okay at all. The opposite of okay. Okay wasn't even visible in the distance. We were no longer in the vicinity of okay.

This guy was nowhere to be found.

My boss had to measure an area for a new plot right next to a small headstone. The headstone had birth and death dates very close to each other, meaning this was a baby's final resting place. Already it was becoming a little more uncomfortable than usual, but my boss treated every job the same. Out came the rod.

He dropped to his knees and started shoving the rod down as hard as he could. On the 3rd or 4th thrust, we heard a giant "crack!" My boss said, "Oops! I think I found it!"

Then, with a grin on his face, he uttered the most disturbing thing I've ever heard (outside of a Donald Trump speech):

"I probably went right through his skull!"

Did he need to add that? No. Did he enjoy the look on my face as he said it? Probably. Did I start looking for a new job when I got home that day? Definitely.

Ultimately, I'm grateful for the work experience I gained during these years. It motivated me to finish school, get my Master's, and never work a blue-collar job again.

Also, when the zombie apocalypse eventually starts, I know exactly who to blame.


I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

Horribly Awesome Crappy Opening Sentences

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is an online writing contest in which participants create an opening sentence to the worst possible novel. Bulwer-Lytton is responsible for the often parodied (or simply copied) opening line: "It was a dark and stormy night..."

I decided to try my hand at it and for the past several months I've concocted some of the most ridiculous sentences I could imagine. I don't know if I followed the rules of the contest (for example, I don't think I write in any particular genre) but it's been fun. Now that I've written a bunch, I figured I'd share them with you because I have literally zero shame. Enjoy!

1) The metal ball protruding from the underside of Barnaby’s penis was caught in the seam of his underwear, causing each stride he took towards the boardwalk on Pier 57 to yank his foreskin painfully, a distraction that he almost welcomed as it helped take his mind off the fear that had been overtaking him since he received the call from the gravel-voiced, anonymous man who for some reason had his sister Barbara tied up on a boat—a situation confirmed by her screaming voice in the background—ready to make a long voyage to an unknown destination unless Barnaby showed up with 10 grand in crisp, unmarked Benjamin Franklins.

2) The worst thing about hanging upside down over the railing on the fifth floor was that the urine flowing freely from his shriveled manhood was streaming directly into his face, mixing with the blood from his busted lip and broken nose caused by the very behemoth holding his feet and screaming obscenities at him in Spanish, a fact he only knew because his childhood friend Pepe (who died from extreme blue balls as a 15 year old in an all boys prep school) taught him all the curse words.

3) The pimple on her left butt cheek was taking her mind off the boil on her right foot so at least Robin had that to be thankful for as she walked to the corner store to pick up a carton of eggs, the only thing she could currently afford and prepare for her family, even though her ex-husband owned the largest garden tool emporium in the state and drove a new Mercedes and spent long weekends in Thailand getting his taint tickled by teen prostitutes; she was happy.

4) The dog’s snoring was keeping Ronald awake but it also had a soothing, relaxing effect on him as he stared out his bedroom window at the trees rustling gently in the nighttime breeze, leaves flittering in the bright moonlight; it was almost enough to make him forget the bubbles in his stomach that were sure to erupt any minute now and send him to the cold ceramic bathroom toilet well into the wee hours of the night.

5) The blood had seeped through the abandoned house’s wooden floorboards on the second story and was now dripping on the floor below at the feet of the man who caused the blood to spill in the first place, a man who has seen his share of splattered blood in his life, a man who isn’t bothered by a few fresh red stains on his tennis shoes, a man who wouldn’t be out of place in a World War 1 movie, running through the trenches with a bayonet, stabbing any keisers on his path to glory; in fact, he had played that very role once, in his Oscar nominated performance from his first and last feature length film, a performance that directly led to his current performance as a hired assassin—except, of course, this was no performance.

6) He didn’t want to have sex with his best friend’s wife but he had made a promise before Terrence was beheaded by that frozen fish truck that he would take care of Sadie no matter what and do anything she asked, up to and including blasting her in the face with a creampie.

7) The alka seltzer plus nighttime tablets were starting to take effect and Donald wondered if he should have taken them when he got home rather than behind the wheel of his wife’s new Camaro that his mother in law had given to her as a gift in his name in exchange for a weekly ride with her son in law to a private hotel room of her choosing; and as his mind wandered to the yellowed curtains of the seedy highway motel they had met in last week, he shook his head to bring him back to the present moment, in which he found himself in oncoming traffic.

8) The boy with the ruffled gray hair looked at the plate in front of him in trepidation; he could not stand the thought of eating any more hastily scooped, lukewarm chili or trying to suck a little bit of juice out of the cardboard box with frozen orange juice concentrate, but he knew this was his only opportunity to get any nutrients today and going to bed hungry was a worse thought than scarfing down the beans in watery meat sauce.

9) He knew it was petty to hold a grudge against an adult for something done as a child but pettiness never bothered Constantine in the slightest (it was an insult his morbidly obese mother hurled at him frequently until she choked on a Cornish game hen) and he did not think twice about pressing the barrel of his glock 9 against his old elementary school chum’s temple, anxiously listening for the familiar sound of fear urine trickling down a grown man’s pants and filling his expensive Italian leather shoes.

10) The cold, biting wind smacked him in the face before he could zip his Carharrt jacket up past his chin and he immediately regretted his decision to make today the day he went to the gym and started to make good on his New Year’s resolution to lose the gut that he had steadily built over the last decade while watching old Family Matters episodes on Netflix and every single The Twilight Zone episode on his grandmother’s VCR.

11) The storm seemed to have subsided, leaving a thin white cover over everything as a reminder of the storm’s control over the conscious of the populace, its mythology spread far and wide by men and women with big mouths, small brains, and inexplicable power in the field of weather profiteering, convincing millions that their worst nightmares will become reality as mild precipitation precipitates an apocalypse more frightening than the scariest scenario that primetime network television’s (or even Amazon Prime’s)  writers could ever come up with, unless given a sizeable budget and proper motivation in the form of tickets to the Golden Globes and the E! network’s after party.

12) The song played over and over again in his head as he tossed and turned in his queen size bed, pulling the covers over his sweat-drenched body  then tossing them off; he couldn’t get comfortable and he couldn’t get the song out of his head and if he didn’t get some sleep soon he would be at work pouring hand soap into his coffee mug instead of creamer again and his boss already told him he couldn’t afford to be caught sleeping in the bathroom stall anymore or else he would be fired, and then he would have to return to working behind the register at his mother’s adult toy store with his step-brother with eczema and Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

13) Leaning on the side of the refrigerator, he opened the door and peered in, hoping that he would spot something he missed the previous 3 times despite the fact that he was the only one to use the fridge and he damn sure hadn’t bought any groceries in weeks so there was no chance of finding anything edible; it was possible that he was just biding his time until his starving mind allowed him to stick his finger in the bottle of expired Ranch dressing and lick the sweet, somewhat chunky sauce that kept staring back at him.

14) His balls itched like they never had before but the thick denim of his jeans wasn’t letting him effectively itch the correct spot and he couldn’t sneak his hand inside his pants without the woman sitting next to him on the bus calling the authorities or at least giving him a stern glance, which, truth be told, he feared more than any transit authority figure, so he simply shifted his weight continuously for a few minutes and thought about the scratching session he would have in the next bathroom he came across.

15) The sweat accumulating on his taint felt like warm diarrhea had somehow slipped out of his anus but he knew that wasnt possible because his sphincter was still tightly puckered after his girlfriend tried to get a little too frisky during fellatio last night, yet he still headed to the bathroom to give a cursory wipe or two; that’s when he saw Horatio. 

Let me know which one is your favorite!

I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

The 36th Chamber

As I enter the 36^th chamber, my 36^th year

I reflect on my life and I shed a slight tear

For the loved ones lost, people, pets and hair

For the knot in my lower back, as big as a pear

For the increasing pollution on land, sea and air

If you pay close attention, you’ll see it’s all there:

Death, decay, and corruption, year after year

Soak it all in, it aint going nowhere.

Man, life sucks.

But if you look at the right things, it all becomes clear.

The things that really matter, they’re also right here.

The love that we give, the moments we share

With our friends, with our families, the people who care.

There will always be tragedy, life isn’t fair.

But beauty and positivity can be found everywhere.

Declining bball skills and back pain make me jeer

But friends and an amazing woman keep me in good cheer.

Most days id rather watch tv and recline in a chair

Than party or get dressed up and go out anywhere

The kids call that “washed” but what do I care?

Oh damn, I’ve become a cliché…my biggest fear!

I’m an old man! How the hell did I get here!

I was a college kid like…just last week, I swear!

Where did the time go? Where, where, WHERE?

I was gonna be in the NBA! Its Most Valuable Player!

Now I watch Game of Thrones and yell at the kingslayer

While Eating ice cream on the couch, smiling ear to ear.

Is it possible that Im actually…happy here?

Indeed I am, happier than ever, looking forward to my 36^th year.

Peace. 

I love you all...Class Dismissed.

The Filibuster Heard Round the World

Senator Murphy addresses the Senate floor.

I've been watching some of the Senate filibuster on gun control, started by none other than my own senator, Connecticut's Chris Murphy. He's one of the few people I've ever voted for who I can actually say I'm proud of. He also supports Pathways, so he's definitely good in my book.

The filibuster has been powerful. Especially when going through the many gun tragedies in just the past few months. I'm proud of Senator Murphy, and whether you agree with him or not, you have to give him credit for doing...fucking something. For fuck's sake we can not simply accept these tragedies as the norm. When Bill O'Reilly is calling for gun reform, you know it's reached a tipping point. I realize that the likelihood of any change being made is very slim but I can't give up hope. I realize even if the changes they want (basically for people on the terror watch list to be banned from buying guns and to expand universal background checks for now, and eventually to have a ban on assault weapons) are made, they might not make a huge difference. But how can we just keep doing nothing? 

Thoughts and prayers are not solution. Banning an entire religious group from our country isn't a damn solution.

So I'm proud of and appreciative for Senator Murphy and the others who are trying to do something to affect change. However, I do have some concerns. They are the same concerns I have had since 9/11. And it's not "Islamic terrorism." It's a loss of liberty and freedom because of the fear of "Islamic terrorism."

People who disliked W. Bush rightly cried foul over the the ill-advised and ill-conceived wars, as well as the Patriot Act, torture and many other things. Those same people have been perfectly fine with Obama's invasions of privacy and endless drone strikes. I try to be consistently cynical and critical. Obama hasn't been much better with foreign policy than Bush was. He has been just as deadly and just as secretive, with the same disastrous results. My concern with the proposed gun reform is with these secret lists. We should get a more detailed explanation of what it takes to get on the terror watch list and the no fly list. The clandestine nature of it worries me greatly. On the other hand, I don't mind that people on those lists are not able to get a gun, because I believe having less guns overall is a good thing.

The problem is, we know how these lists work. We saw it with the Patriot Act, NSA domestic spying, CIA torture and rendition, etc. We can't just give up all of our rights and our privacy to the government in the name of fighting terror. Again, I'm not a big fan of, or believer in, the right for any person to have guns, but I'm also not a fan of giving up rights, whether I personally like them or not. Once we give them up, we don't usually get them back.

The problem with these lists is that most people on the terror list have never committed a crime, and many are on the list in error. Is it acceptable to take away their rights? Are we pre-cogs from Minority Report? Then again, I'm all for making it harder for the people on the list to get a gun because I'm all for making it harder for everybody to get a gun. 

We should have much more oversight on these lists and on all of the activities of our government and its agencies. That is a must. There are also many things that we must do to address gun deaths. 

We should have universal background checks. We should close the gun show loophole. We should start a national gun registry. We should have mandatory gun insurance. We should allow government research on gun violence. We should invest in creating smart bullets & guns. We should make a law stating that if a person commits a crime with a gun, they lose their right to own a gun. 

Those are just a few suggestions. I'm all for discussing more. We can't just focus on the terror list. The government only labels certain people "terrorists" and we all know who that is, despite the fact that a different group of people commits most mass shootings. So we need to get a better understanding of these lists and we can't think banning everybody on these lists is the only solution. 

Similarly, we can't think an assault weapons ban will solve everything, if it even passes or if it's even proposed. I'm all for it. but it's not the only solution. 

By the way, I don't give a flying pink elephant beershit if you call them assault weapons or semi-automatic rifles or military-style weapons or machine guns. High capacity, rapid fire guns should not be in the hands of civilians. 

Or the police. All gun control measures should be met with equal measures to demilitarize and retrain police officers.

These are my opinions. We may not agree on everything, but let's talk it out until we do. That may include some yelling and name calling, but that's what it takes sometimes. It's not going to be easy, but ignoring it because you'd rather see heart emojis and "love is love" posts on Facebook till the end of time, or you don't want to disrupt Sunday dinner by openly disagreeing with a family member, isn't going to solve anything. 

Let's hold our government representatives accountable as well. This filibuster is important and admirable, but what really matters is what happens after Senator Murphy gets the late night gut rumbles and has to concede the floor. When this bill is rejected, like it was after Sandy Hook, what will we do then? Forget about it until the next record setting mass shooting?   

I'll leave you with a letter from a parent of a Sandy Hook victim to the families of the Club Pulse victims.

And if you read that, you'll probably need this gif of a fat basset hound running to cheer you up...

Dogs make everything all right. Keep on running, doggie. Don't ever stop. 

I Love You All...Class Dismissed.

Voluntary Weirdos

I've been working with Pathways/Senderos for 8 years (!) now, and I have a lifetime of stories. Working with kids, most of whom live in poverty, a lot of these stories can be heartbreaking. Many are heartwarming. Some are just plain silly or ridiculous. Some are stories about things our kids tell us about their lives at home or in school; some are things that occur at the Center. One day I'd love to compile the best stories for a book or movie or HBO Series or maybe just my own personal journal. 

With all these stories and experiences, I've learned how resilient kids can (and have to) be on a daily basis just to survive. They've taught me more than I've taught them etc etc pull your heartstrings yada yada. In all sincerity, I admire these kids.

Some of the strangest stories are from adults, though. As a non-profit program that serves kids, we have opportunities for volunteering and we have had many amazing volunteers. We are very appreciative of their dedication and hard work. They add an important element to our program. However, there have also been several...interesting volunteers. Individuals who should probably be working on their own issues before trying to help others. Yet even some of these volunteers have brought something positive to the table. 

Then there's the more, shall we say, problematic volunteers. Part of my job is recruiting volunteers, so I have to take partial credit/blame for the people who end up actually volunteering, but I can't be blamed for ALL of the weirdos who simply contact me about volunteering. 

The worst case of a volunteer gone wild occurred before I started working there so I can't be held responsible for that, either. A student from CCSU volunteered at the Center years back. Staff members always got a weird vibe from him, but he seemed harmless. One day he bugged out then left and never came back. Later, they saw a story in the news about a CCSU student who stabbed his girlfriend. It was him. 

So we stopped taking college volunteers for a while. We do background checks, but not every person with violent tendencies has a record, so there is always somewhat of a risk.

One of the strangest volunteers we've had since I started was a retired pediatrician. He seemed like a nice enough guy and he was well respected in the city. He wanted to give back to the community now that he was retired. He even offered to give our kids free physicals. That set off a little alarm in my head because although it sounds helpful, would it even be legal? And where would he do these physicals? At the Center? What would they entail? 

Turns out it didn't really matter, because he only came to the Center twice. He didn't exactly make a connection with our kids. We have a few elderly volunteers, so it's not the age that prevented him from making a connection. He just never made the required effort. He must have thought he made a decent connection with me though because after the second visit, I received an email from him. It was one of those chain emails explaining how all Muslims are evil and that Christians need to do something soon before Muslims take over the world. I replied (probably the only person in existence to actually reply to his emails) and told him that we are open to people of all different faiths. I also asked not to be included in any more email chains. He apologized and I never heard from him again. 

But we sure heard about him. A few years later he died amidst a sexual abuse scandal. Former patients were accusing him of molestation. The case is still ongoing. 

Those "free physicals" really took on a whole new, horrifying meaning. So, yeah. Trust your instincts, especially when it comes to the safety of kids. 

Then there was the most recent volunteer debacle. Potential volunteer. She didn't make it past the interview. She was an older woman, a former social worker with an interest in our program and lot of experience with kids. We communicated through email a few times and I asked her to come in. She was very pleasant. I gave her my 10 minute spiel about Pathways and volunteers, then I asked her to tell me more about herself. 

Literally ten seconds into her life story, she starts crying. 

Dammit.

I tell her its ok, take your time. I may come off as an unfeeling asshole on here (hell, I may even BE an unfeeling asshole) but I know how to at least act empathetic. When she finally composed herself, she told me how she's going through this horrible court case that has basically ruined her life. She needed to do community service. I told her that we normally don't accept volunteers if it's court ordered community service, but that I would at least hear her out. 

She explained that about a year earlier, she was driving with her mother. Someone was walking in the street ("probably drunk," she was sure to include) and he hit her. Now I was confused. So the pedestrian hit the car? And she somehow knew he was drunk? She claimed that at the time, she was very confused and unsure of what happened. When she got home and tried to help her mom out of the car, she couldn't open the passenger door. That's when she knew something was wrong. 

THAT'S when she knew? 

She said she must have blacked out. The cops eventually came to her house and she was arrested for leaving the scene of a crime. Now she was still dealing with the court case. "But," she said as she held back tears, "I just hope something good can finally come from all of this." I understand and appreciate that sentiment. We all make mistakes and deserve redemption and if we can make something positive out of a negative situation we should do all what we can to make it happen. 

But something was really off. There was a lot missing from the story. I told her we probably couldn't take her on because of our policy, but I'd talk to my superiors. She thanked me and left.

We immediately went online to check out her story. What I don't understand is how people think they can keep secrets in this day and age. I mean, there's this thing called Google. It's really great for finding information, especially if it's public information from court dockets and popular news sites. 

We easily found out the rest of her story. Not only did she leave the scene of the crime, she was drunk, and the guy she hit ended up dying. She was charged with a DUI and involuntary manslaughter. So, yeah, a little more serious than she let on. I didn't appreciate how she seemed to blame the guy for hitting her and claiming he was drunk when in fact, it was all her. I also didn't appreciate how she left all of that out of her story. But I really didn't appreciate how she didn't tell me ANY of this in our initial conversations. Not one mention of the court ordered community service. It wouldn't have mattered, we weren't taking her on with or without the lying, but at least I wouldn't have wasted my time. 

I'll stop here, but know that I could go on for another few thousand words just on our volunteers. I'll save the rest for the movie.

I Love You All...Class Dismissed. 

How is Supporting Donald Trump Racist? (Answered in 1 Sentence)

The other day a friend asked me why it has recently become popular to call all Donald Trump supporters racist. It's a fair question. No it's not. It's a dumb question, for a few reasons. First, it's not just recently. I have been labeling Donald Trump supporters racist for almost  a year. And I'm not the only one.

I'm just the only one that made this very convenient vine.

The other reason why it's a dumb question is because there is no shortage of evidence that Donald Trump is a racist with racist beliefs, actions, and policies. I mean seriously, if you have paid attention to Donald Trump even the slightest bit in the past 30 years, his racism (amongst other things) is obvious.

But I understand that some people don't equate supporting a racist as being racist itself. That's fucking stupid, but it is not an uncommon belief. Nobody wants to be seen as a racist. And supporting Donald Trump isn't like calling someone the n-word or refusing to serve a black guy at a restaurant or something blatantly racist like that. You love black people! You eat lunch with the black guy at work! You just happen to think Donald Trump is the best guy to run the country!

Well, guess what? That's racist as shit!

If you are still unsure of why supporting Donald Trump makes you a racist, let me explain in one sentence:

If you support Donald Trump, you support a guy that wants to ban an entire religious group from the US; a guy that has the full support of the KKK and has not denounced their support in any way; a guy whose father was either in the KKK or had close ties with them; a guy who will not admonish his fans when they use racial/ethnic slurs; a guy who will not admonish his fans, and in fact encourages them, when they attack protesters or random immigrants;  a guy who was sued by the Justice Department for the racist housing policies of his real estate firm in New York; a guy who bought an $85,000 advertisement in the New York Post damn near begging the state to kill 5 young black men for a rape they didn't commit; a guy who still has not apologized to those 5 young black men after they were found not guilty; a guy who thinks eating a taco bowl equates to cultural outreach to "The Hispanics"; a guy who wants to deport millions of those same Hispanics; a guy who's main policy initiative is literally the dumbest idea in the world--building a giant wall on the border between our southern neighbor and ally; a guy who calls those same neighbors and allies murderers and rapists; a guy who claims the border wall is for national security but has never mentioned a wall on our northern border to "protect" us against our more light skinned neighbors; a guy who is so blinded by racism that he doesn't realize at least 40% of undocumented immigrants come here legally on work or student visas and never cross  the Mexican border; a guy who hates immigrants but doesn't realize most new immigrants are coming from India and China and never cross the Mexican border; a guy who thinks Mexicans are so dumb that they don't know how to use tunnels (or, I don't know, planes?) to cross the border; a guy who thinks "The Blacks" and "The Hispanics" and "The Women" love him yet doesn't realize he has historically low support among those groups; a guy who wants to ignore international rules of engagement and kill the entire families of terrorists (only Islamic terrorists, though); a guy who wants to "kick China's ass"; a guy who single-handedly legitimized the Birther movement against Barack Obama and still hasn't provided the proof he claimed to have; if you support all of that, then yes, that makes you a racist.

Any other questions?


I Love You All (Even Donald Trump Supporters Racists, But Only Because Love is the Only Thing That Conquers Hate)...Class Dismissed.