My mom is going to have surgery and radiation to remove cancer from her breast tomorrow. The procedure will be done at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, the hospital in which I was born. I don't want to think of the cruel irony that could possibly play out.
Yet here I am, thinking about it.
Her older sister has battled breast cancer twice, the first time when she was in her 50s. My mom considers herself lucky because she didn't get it until her 70s. Yeah, besides that whole Parkinson's thing for the last 20 years, pretty lucky!
My mom doesn't want and never asks for pity or sorrow, and I certainly won't. That's not what this is about. When I write about my mom, it's never about that. It's more about taking every opportunity to discuss and talk about the love and admiration I have for her. I didn't vocally express my love for my parents for a long time, and I want to make sure to do that as much as possible now.
And sometimes I simply need to vent about the constant shit that the universe rains down on good people, over and over. My mom's Parkinson's diagnosis 20 years ago contributed to my loss of faith and belief in God; the last 20 years has provided a daily reminder that there is no all-knowing, all-seeing, compassionate, omnipresent being. Her latest diagnosis assures me that even if there were a god, he/she/it is a fucking twisted asshole.
One of the things that gets me, besides the general cruelty of putting such a caring, giving, kind woman through all of this, is that she still goes to church. For me, her Parkinson's and cancer are clear evidence that god doesn't exist, or at the very least, that god doesn''t care about anyone. I realize I'm just projecting my thoughts and beliefs on her; maybe my closeness to the situation is not letting me see any other perspective. I also realize that for some people, these obstacles or challenges or shitty situations make their faith even stronger. I don't personally get that, but I know it happens, and I respect it. One could argue that she has lived a relatively healthy life since her Parkinson's diagnosis and that's something to be thankful for; I might even agree with that. At the same time, Parkinson's is is an awful, painful, incurable disease that gets worse over time, so what's there to be thankful for?
Breast cancer on top of that just ain't right. There's no "greater plan" that can include that. Don't give me that "it's a test" shit, either; she's passed any possible test with flying colors in her 71 years.
I try not to get sad when thinking of my mom, but it can be difficult. I hate seeing her bent frame. She always had good posture and made sure my brother and I sat up straight at the dinner table. I hate seeing her hands tremble. She used to paint beautiful ceramic figurines. One year she gave me a ceramic Gizmo (from Gremlins) that played music when you turned the knob on the bottom
I'm fighting tears as I write this. Some of my sadness is probably out of self-pity. I think about how I've lived with her having Parkinson's longer than I lived with her not having it, and I think about how I will have more memories of her with the disease than without.
That's probably fucked up, right? I think all of these thoughts are pretty fucked up. But they are frequent. Too often, I think about the future and what the hell I'm gonna do without her in my life. That doesn't go too well.
I realize I'm being overly sensitive about it. I should just appreciate the time I have with her. A lot of my friends' parents have gone through similar things. Some of my friends have even lost a parent, or both parents. I know I shouldn't complain or be sad when she is still here, and still herself. But I will complain goddammit because my mom doesn't deserve this shit.
The only possible benefit of seeing my mom go through all of this is that her strength and resilience are on ready display. My mom isn't defined by Parkinson's but her perseverance and determination in the face of it does define her. She is facing the cancer the same way. I'm making a much bigger deal about it here than she ever has or will.
Another thing that has been made evident since the day of my mom's Parkinson's diagnosis is my father's strong yet gentle and loving disposition. Dealing with Parkinson's symptoms and the steady stream of doctor's appointments and trial procedures can be almost as difficult on the sufferer's partner. I think about how I can barely handle my mom's sickness, then think about how my father has been by her side ever since, no questions asked, and I wonder if I will ever be half as strong. Now, dealing with this new diagnosis, I am even more amazed by his resiliency.
I am amazed by both of my parents. I know that any good in me comes from them. I feel their love and guidance every day. I see their love and their lessons brought to life in my brother's daughters. I try to emulate my parents' love for each other and their love for life. It takes a real love of life to continue vacationing and cooking and walking the dog and loving one another, unabated by a neurological disease. And I'm sure this latest diagnosis and procedure will be no different.
Ok. I'm not sure. That's the problem. How can you ever be sure? Sometimes I wish I had faith in something. That might be comforting. Actually, that was part of the problem. I thought a god figure was comforting until it was really needed. Then it provided no comfort.
Anyways, if people are so inclined to pray for my mom, that's cool. Anything to even slightly increase the chances of things turning out fine. Personally, I am trying to think positive thoughts and spread good vibes and just generally not freak out. I figure if I spit out any negative thoughts, that would leave only positive thoughts, so I apologize if anything here comes off harsh, but if I know anything, it's that life can be harsh and bleak and down right brutal.
Thankfully, my parents have showed me that we can make a choice to focus on the beauty of life. It's not an easy choice, because it's easy to be overwhelmed by life's brutal realities. My first tattoo reads "The struggle is the blessing..." It is a sort of combination of the buddhist belief that life is suffering and the idea that the journey is more important than the destination. I believe that the struggle is the blessing, yet I need to constantly remind myself because that is counter-intuitive. How can struggle be a blessing? I view struggle as a sign that you are living, you are fighting for something. When you don't struggle, you have given up. My parents, and Jimmy Valvano of course, taught me to never give up.
The idea that "the struggle is a blessing" is also a reminder to appreciate the present, as well as the past. Oftentimes, we don't appreciate the effort we put in to achieving a goal because we are so focused on the goal itself. Then, when we reach that goal, we realize that the real glory, the blessing, was in the effort we put in. Sometimes, I think about the future and life without my mom, when I should really be appreciating the time I've had with her and the time I still have with her.
Overall, viewing the struggle as a blessing, and using mindfulness to focus on the present are my ways of keeping perspective during tough times. There's got to be a reason for all this, right? That's what I'm really searching for, and that's why I seek solace in certain philosophies. They try to give meaning to things that seem to have none. The same goes for religious people, albeit in a slightly different manner, so although I might seem like I'm bashing theists, I swear to...my mom that I'm not. We're all searching for meaning and comfort and happiness. There's nothing wrong with finding alternative ways of doing so.
Right now, the number one way for me to find meaning and comfort and happiness is knowing that my mom is all right. So make sure she's all right, universe (i.e., doctors and nurses taking care of her).
UPDATED 10/29/2016: Mom is doing well after surgery. She will do the radiation treatments in a few weeks when she has healed. So it goes.
I Love You All (Especially You, Mom and Dad)...Class Dismissed.
On September 24, 1991, A Tribe Called Quest released a perfect album. 25 years later, I take a look back at one of my favorite albums ever.
Prof Thug's Diggin in the Cassettes Vol. 2
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
Glorious.
I first discovered A Tribe Called Quest through their video for We Got the Jazz/Buggin Out. It was probably the first video I saw on BET's Rap City. I was soon addicted to the show, hoping they would play that video or Check the Rhime and of course Scenario. I soon purchased their sophomore album The Low End Theory. My musical world was never the same.
From the moment I purchased it at 11 years old, I listened to this tape constantly. I brought it with me everywhere; I even remember listening to it in England on a family vacation. I had my walkman and my favorite tape with me as we drove through the English countryside and the city of London. The album felt like home, and it still does.
I listened to this cassette more than any other. In fact, I listened to it so damn much it no longer works.
Dammit.
My whole friggin concept of listening to the albums on the actual cassettes shit the bed on the second post. Great.
Whatever. I'll listen on youtube. I could probably recite the whole album word for word from memory if I needed to.
The Tribe trio once again handle the beats and rhymes, with the exception of two songs produced by Skeff Anselm (he gets props too huh ha!).Phife is much more involved on the album, a conscious decision made by the group after Phife learned he was diabetic. Jarobi, the 4th Tribe member, is not on the album because he left to study culinary art after their debut. No offense to Jarobi, but these changes allowed Tribe to make a much more concise album than their debut.
On The Low End Theory, they perfected the sound they established the year before. The formula seems simple but their minimalist sound is still lush with different textures. They are pioneers of mixing hip hop and jazz (yeah thats here my hearts at); they did it so well that to me, it felt like something that had simply always existed. It was so natural. I felt the connection between hip hop and jazz before I even knew the history of the connection. Through their sound and samples, along with direct references in their rhymes, they expressed the historical link between jazz and hip hop, revolutionary forms of black music that sprang from oppression. The improvisational style of jazz also heavily influenced the style of hip hop. Over the course of this album, the Tribe expressed the link between hip hop and all forms of African American music.
A lot of people think I only listen to rap, and that was true for a long period of time. However, my love for all varieties of rap, in particular my love for A Tribe Called Quest, exposed me to so many types of music. Without realizing it, I was exposed to jazz, rock, r&b, soul, funk, disco, and all other forms of music that hip hop producers sampled from. Now I have an appreciation for all types of music (except country, obviously) and I credit Tribe for my eclectic tastes.
And they were just friggin kids!
Let's take this journey...
Excursions
The perfect album starter, It starts right in with a funky bassline. Q-Tip drops a legendary verse talking about the progression of music: I said well daddy dont you know that things go in cycles.
He has a lot of gems here. It's a noticeable upgrade of his rhyming on the debut album, but the themes are the same; the focus is on positivity, pro-Blackness, and music itself.
Q-Tip handles the two verses and the chorus: We gotta make moves, never ever ever could we fake moves. He is flawless here, as is the beat. The drums and bass and horns during the chorus all flow together seamlessly as usual. The sample of the Lost Poets (time is an inanimate object) is another perfect match, amplifying the theme of time running through Q-Tip's lyrics. The recorded voice repeating itself at the end time is running and passing and passing and running echoes Q-Tip repeating excursions excursions excursions. The voices and the beat cut off abruptly, and provide a perfect transition into...
Buggin' Out
The bass line starts in on its own. Then the drums and hi hats kick in when Phife says, YO!
It is a perfect song as a whole, and there are so many amazing individual moments within the song, too. Like at the end of Phife's verse, when Q-Tip starts doing the adlib (uh uh uh UH) then starts his own verse. At the same time, a little snare drum has started up. That leads to a cymbal crash. The same breakdown occurs the next time Phife's verse transitions to Q-Tip's. These little details are everywhere and they're easy to miss at first because there's so much going on and it all comes together so naturally. You can lose yourself in the whole, or you can lose yourself in each detail.
This song also perfectly exemplifies the amazing chemistry Q-Tip and Phife had, as well as how important Phife was to the recipe. His deeper voice, harder punch lines and more aggressive flow provide the perfect balance and weight to Q-Tip's airiness. He destroys his verses here, with gem after gem (styles upon styles upon styles is what I have) yet Q-Tip is able to match him with the punchlines (minds get flooded...ejaculation, right on the 2-inch tape). They have both stepped their game up drastically.
This song is just so insane. The beat knocks, they kill their verses, the chorus is a perfect hip hop chorus (a sampled voice repeating a phrase) and the video was crazy. It was a 2 part video: it opened with Jazz (We Got) in black and white. then halfway through it cut to Phife in bright colors and huge fake white eyeballs. I couldn't get enough. I saw what could be done with music as all encompassing art. The visuals, the beat and melodies, the wordplay. I was hooked.
Rap Promoter
And this song made me never want to get into the business of music. Finally, after an album and 2 songs of positivity and lightheartedness, reality sets in for the guys. They give us an inside look into the seedy side of the industry.
Phife plays the part of the shady rap promoter, talking to the artists during the song's breakdown.
Q-Tip keeps his good nature though. He's a simple man with simple pleasures. I want chicken and orange juice, that's what's on my rider. He just wants to be taken care of, then they will do a fly song for you love check it out diggy dang diggy dangy dang a dang diggy diggy.
Is that too much to ask, Mr. Rap Promoter?
Butter
Great beat. Great verses by Phife. Fantastic chorus by Q-Tip.
This is Phife bragging about his sexual conquests. "Locker room talk," some would call it, although there doesn't seem to be any issue about consent here.
Phife starts off talking about how many women he's been with. Then he meets Flo, a girl who not only equals his "playa" status, but surpasses it.
In the second verse, he spouts a little bit of respectability politics towards the ladies and even sounds a little bit like the Hoteps who exist on Twitter and Facebook posting about "fake bitches."
Your whole appearance is a lie and it could never be true And if you really loved yourself then you would try and be you If your hair and eyes were real, I wouldn't have dissed ya But since it was bought, I had to dismiss ya
On the one hand, I get it. A famous musician probably meets more schemers than your average person. I'm sure he's dealt with a lot of people who do not have self love or an understanding of self. I'm not against promoting the idea that your true self is good enough, and as a kid it all made perfect sense to me because I never considered any other perspective (like the woman's). I just don't like the implication that wearing a weave or contacts means a person hates themselves.
Regardless, he's got some great lines and his flow is on point. Plus, the beat, the horn sample, and the chorus make up for any flaws in the lyrics.
Verses from the Abstract
One thing that is lost when listening on youtube instead of a tape is the incredible sequencing. The songs merge into one another on this album better than any album I've ever heard. The damn ads on youtube or streaming site ruin that sensation, but all the songs stand on their own anyways.
Butter was essentially a Phife Dawg solo, the first of its kind, and this is a Q-Tip solo. Another great beat, with some assistance from the great Ron Carter on double bass, and the lovely Vinia Mojica singing background vocals.
Tip starts off shouting out his friends: Busta Rhymes in effect, Shaheed is in effect, Phife Didawg is in effect. He talks about using Coast in the morning to avoid the funky odor and his fetish for some booty. He's just talking shit and flowing effortlessly and it's amazing.
At the end, he shouts out some more of his favorite rappers and thanks Ron Carter. Then he says Goddamn it yes the Quest is on and we OUT! The beat stops, there's a moment of silence, then the first line of the next song hits... Show Business featuring Diamond D, Lord Jamar and Sadat X
Let me tell you 'bout the snakes, the fakes, the lies The highs at all of these industry shing-dings
This is a great posse cut that builds on the themes brought up in Rap Promoter. The guys really release their frustration at the music industry here. Yo I gotta speak about the cesspool. It's the rap industry and it aint that cool. This is like a public service announcement to aspiring rappers. Tip and Phife are joined by Sadat X and Lord Jamar from the legendary Brand Nubian, and rapper/producer Diamond D. So these guys speak from experience.
This is the first song to appear in their discography not produced by the group themselves. This maintains the same vibe established on the album, but it is produced by Skeff Anselm (co-produced by the Tribe). It samples James Brown and Aretha Franklin, two iconic artists who knew about getting screwed by the industry.
All of the verses work really well together. And I love the dahh-oo voice sample and the beat breakdown when the verses end.
Vibes and Stuff
The last song ends on the dahh-oo, and this starts with a bell ringing and a horn sample. Possibly the best transition on the album. This beat is crazy. It's got a chopped up sample that cuts in and out, the bell ringing and echoing at the start of each 4th bar, and the dusty drums. Then the breakdown with the jazzy horn sample while Tip names off different parts of the country that have the vibe.
I think I gotta I think I gotta I think i gotta SCREAM Cuz thats how good it feels man
That accurately describes the feeling of listening to this song.
Tip ends the song with a special...special...a special dedication to all of the slain rappers...the fallen rappers. Another great album cut.
The Infamous Date Rape
Classic...classic...classic example of a...a date rape.
One of their hardest beats and one of the more interesting subject matters. Tip's first verse talks about a typical date and offers some very good advice. If the vibe ain't right, ya leavin. He wants to bone but not without consent. Yet and still, rappers get blamed for the moral degradation of society. You're obviously not listening to A Tribe Called Quest!
Phife then drops a verse about hooking up with a girl who cries "rape" after a night of consensual sex. Now I've never been the type to accuse women of false accusations, quite the opposite really, and it bothers me when women are not trusted. However, there are certainly a few cases in which a women has falsely accused someone. Fame and money add to that possibility, so I'm not gonna hate on this verse, especially snce the first verse is about not violating consent.
Tip's last verse clarifies and solidifies his stance on consent:
I won't cry over spilled milk If you won't let me take you to the Hilt I don't wanna bone you that much That I would go for the unforbidden touch I'm not the type that would go for that
Not all men, bro. #NotAllMen
Then he goes off on a tangent about women on their period that's a little odd but also kind of funny. Check the Rhime
This song rocked my musical world. I couldn't get over what I was hearing. Tip starts in uh! uh! uh! uh! uh! then the drum kicks in while that horn sample plays. The back and forth before each verse. Ya on point, Phife? All the time, Tip. The verses themselves. If knowledge is the key well just show me the lock. Amazing.
This song was magic the first time I heard it and I've felt the same ever since. There is no time when I'm not in the mood to listen to this song. It is a perfect representation of Golden Era hip hop.
It's a real playful song, but Tip also drops the line Industry Rule number 4080, record company people are shadyyyy, so the business aspect of music was definitely a recurring theme on the album. It's what gives the album more edge than their debut, and what makes it better overall. Their anger pays off. Tip jokes that these music execs smoke crack. That's a much stronger diss than anything he said to Lucien. The joyfulness and the positivity and the hopefulness is still there, but reality has caused them to refine their more eccentric sensibilities and focus their music.
Everything Is Fair
This was another song produced by Skeff Anselm. Great vocal sample for the chorus. Everything is fair when ya livin in the citayyy.
I haven't said it before, but Q-Tip has one of the best voices in hip hop. It's deep yet nasally and he has such an effortless flow. He can even drop a little melody here and there. You don't have to say a worrrrd. Phife has a good voice, too, and the contrast between the two is what creates such a strong sound, but Tip can really hold his own, which he does here. He talks about a woman trying to make it in the big, dangerous city. He hooks up with her and starts selling drugs for her. It's a straight-forward, typical rap fantasy narrative (with gunshot sound effects and everything!) but with a Tribe flavor.
It's a good song, with some nice musical progressions and switch ups, but nothing ground-breaking. It ends with the music stopping and Tip repeating top...top..top..
Jazz (We've Got)
Another great transition into the guys chanting We got the jazz we got the jazz. This was some more other-wordly shit. Tip gives a perfect verse into the perfect chorus with the perfect horn sample and then Phife drops another perfect verse, which starts off with his infamous patois: Competition them Phifer come sideway. Competition they must come straight way.
The hip-hop/jazz mix seems so simple now. It really feels like it had to happen because of how natural it is. People couldn't have come up with this, it must have just been there all along. You look back and it might seem somewhat bland because it's been done so much now. But it's been done and copied so much because it was so good and it was so groundbreaking. That's how you know something is good. It created, or helped create, the defining sound of a beloved era of music.
Plus this video was just cool as shit. Putting the two songs together was genius. I totally forgot how, at the end, they come back to the original black and white video setting with Tip doing his verse acapella. Awesome. Skypager
Do you know the importance of a sky pager?
This song screams early 90s. Beeper's going off like Don Trump gets checks. Keep my bases loaded like the New York Mets. Ok, so Phife wasn't always the best sidekick. I mean, Robin died a few times on Batman, so Phife can bomb a few times, right? Besides, the batteries I use are called Duracell, they last for three weeks so they do me well makes up for it in its utter absurdity.
The chorus is phone sounds, an automated voice saying welcome to the new skypager, then Tip going uhhhhh... so funky, while Ali Shaheed Muhammad scratches. It's a nice little rap ditty.
Side note: someone should do a collection of all the references to Donald Trump in rap music (pre-Presidential run). There's probably enough for a DJ Drama mixtape. It'd also be interesting to see a lot of rappers' political leanings. I bet many are basically conservatives (not the Tribe, necessarily, but a lot of rappers). Guns, capitalism, misogyny. Its the GOP platform!
What?
This is the closest song to filler on the album, and it's still great. It somehow manages to be the perfect transition to the best song on the album, so for that alone it's a classic. It's an uptempo beat with Tip saying some silliness then rapping in questions for the remainder of the song. He switches up the structure from "what is a ____ if_____" to "what is a ____without the___" to a few other "what" questions.
It's nothing special, until the end, when Tip raps:
ooh ooh, it's like that ya keep going freak freak yall cuz you know that we showin what tigga what tigga what tigga what tigga what tigga what tigga what tigga
[group yelling] WHAT!
Scenario featuring Leaders of the New School
The bass and organ start in boom boom BOOM, boom boom BOOM. Then a bunch of guys yell out HERE WE GO YO, HERE WE GO YO! while the drums kick in.
As much as I loved Check the Rhime the first time I heard it, it still didn't compare to this.
Besides the amazing performance by each rapper (this was one of the earliest songs I could recite competely) it sampled Jimi Hendrix. They get credit for meshing jazz with rap, but they also merged rock, funk (Funkadelic on Everything is Fair) R&B (James Brown and Aretha Frankiln). Black music is utilized with love and care and turned into something entirely original and beautiful.
Phife will be forever loved because of his opening bar and nut inside ya eye, to show you where I come from. Busta Rhymes became my favorite rapper the second I heard his verse. Dinco D and Charlie Brown will always have free drinks around me because of their contributions. And Q-Tip showed his versatility by going back and forth with Busta.
This is the greatest rap song ever. I'll fight about it.
So that's the tape. What an ending!
It turns out that a song called Georgie Porgie was originally on the album, but was rejected by the label because of its hoophobia. The track was eventually rewritten as Show Business. I never heard it so I looked it up and just listened to it.
Man...I did not need to hear Phife and Q-tip spouting gay-bashing lyrics. But you can if you want. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, considering Lord Jamar, King of the Homophobes, is on the song, but it damn near broke my heart.
I'm so glad they kept it off the album. I'm sure they're happy, too. The omission of this atrocious song allows the album to maintain its perfection.This is probably the first and only case where a label actually made an album better. See, modern rappers? You don't need to release every single thing you do. Sometimes less is more. Get someone to tell you when your song sucks. I am available for hire.
I owe a lot to this album. It got me through much of my young life and opened my eyes to so much great music. I can listen to it at any time and it transports me to a place of comfort and peace. And the damn thing just knocks, even to this day.
Welcome to Prof Thug's Diggin in the Cassettes! In this series, I will be listening to the entirety of my cassette tape collection. For a fully immersive experience, I will listen to the albums on cassette. My pencil is ready!
My whole body just shuddered.
As began my love for hip hop, so begins my blog for hip hop. A Tribe Called Quest was one of my first true hip hop loves so it's only right I start with them. Let's do this!
Prof Thug's Diggin in the Cassettes Vol. 1
A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels and The Paths of Rhythm
Behold the beauty.
This might sound absurd, considering the legendary status of this album, but People's Instinctive Travels and The Paths of Rhythm is my 4th favorite Tribe album. It's also the only one I didn't purchase in chronological order. I loved the two main singles, Can I Kick It and Bonita Applebaum, but they didn't change my musical world like the singles from The Low End Theory. That said, every Tribe album is great and this is an absolute classic. Tribe's debut album was released in April of 1990. I was 10 so I was still into Motley Crue and Def Leppard. I was starting to get into hip hop through acts like Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Run-DMC, Tone-Loc, and Public Enemy, but I wasn't all in yet. Low End Theory changed that, and when I went back and got this, it helped solidify my love for them and the art form as a whole.
Tribe was classified as "alternative hip hop"; that basically meant it wasn't as commercially viable but you might hear it at some local coffee shops. Along with other Native Tongue rappers (De La Soul, Jungle Brothers) they were applauded for their positivity and creativity. They also produced the entire album and wrote all their lyrics, an amazing accomplishment considering they were 19-20 years old at the time. The album received the heralded 5 mics in The Source and many other accolades. To be so young and have such a fully formed, well established sound is incredible. They refined and developed that sound in the next two albums, but the foundation was laid here.
It's a simple formula: Q-Tip rapping breezily over very jazzy, mellow, sample-based grooves. Phife was the capable, and slightly more aggressive sidekick; unfortunately, he was only on 4 of the 14 tracks of their debut, which hurts the album a little bit. Like all Tribe albums, it had great sequencing, with songs flowing smoothly into the next, largely orchestrated by DJ and current host of NPR's Microphone Check, Ali Shaheed Muhammad. The songs are all held together by the interludes, starring the (occasional) 4th group member, the elusive Jarobi. In these interludes, backed by a sample of Eugene Robinson's Jagger the Dagger, he talks to an anonymous crowd, hyping them and the album audience up. These skits help create album cohesion and make the listener feel like they are part of the block party that is this album.
And since it' a party, I came prepared...
Push It Along
The album starts with the sound of a baby crying. This is their birth into the hip hop scene. Push it along, like a baby in a birth canal.
Then the beat hits. The simple but transcendent drum pattern that Q-Tip gloriously referred to as the boom, the bip, the boom bip. Then that luscious little string sample.
This really set the tone of the album. There is an invisible force (the rhythm) that gives the album a constant forward momentum. Q-Tip starts it off with a verse, then there's a quick hook with the group chanting push it along push it along push it along yeah push it along. Then Phife follows it up with a short verse, and Tip comes in again right before the hook. There's a beautiful break down with the horns and then Q-Tip follows up with another verse. It all works perfectly here, but one minor problem I have with the album is that Tip goes on for too long at times. It's not like he was talking about much, either. Although in this song, he shouts out Afrocentric living and essentially outlines the entire style and persona of the group, so the extra verse isn't a problem here.
It fades into the short outro from Jarobi. He introduces the group and the album to cheering and clapping from a crowd of partygoers.
Side note: in researching the album, I couldn't find the sample used for these interludes. I asked Dart Adams, a music writer I follow on Twitter, who told me he was "not a sample snitch." Just as I thought all was lost, Phonte from Little Brother tweeted me and gave me the answer. Little Brother is a rap group that was heavily influenced by Tribe, so that was a very cool moment.
Luck of Lucien
It starts with horns from Here Comes the President, or some shit like that. I wish I had more of a music history background because I can recognize a lot of songs but don't know their name. So I might be saying things like, "that song with the horns and the guitar thing" a lot in this series.
Apparently this is somewhat of a dedication to Lucien Revolucien, a popular French rapper, but it also kind of makes fun of him. Q-Tip is flowing a bit faster here, addressing Lucien, who occasionally speaks back throughout the song. There's no chorus, just an instrumental bridge with jazzy horns.
Q-Tip drops a little French, and at one point Lucien raps "cuckoo...le poo poo." So, like a lot of the songs on the album, there are a few corny parts, but that's all part of the fun. You can't hate on it because it's so joyful and playful.
After Hours
This is a jam. It opens with scratches into a Richard Pryor quote, after hours that was cool. Then the sample of a voice saying freak freak the funk the funk funk freak freak the funk the funk funk you got to GET UP.
Q-Tip starts in with a real laid back flow, talking about hanging out, drinking apple juice, and bullshitting with his friends about rap and famines and crazy crimes as the sun goes down. Then the bridge/chorus comes in with scratches and the sampled voices. I love a rap song with a good scratched sample as the chorus.
At one point, there's a breakdown with frogs croaking. I always found it odd, but again, its weirdness and corniness just adds to the unique, joyful vibe.
The sun rises, they all say peace and go their separate ways down their rhythmic paths.
Footprints
Another straight up jam. A Stevie Wonder Sir Duke horn sample starts it off (I knew that one right away) and that leads into a crazy beat that samples Donald Byrd's Think Twice (I looked that one up).
Q-Tip begins flowing then the lower bass drum hits (not "drops"). On the breakdown, there's a sample of Rev. Jesse Jackson talking, and then someone repeats footprints yall.
Like all of their best work, this feels natural and effortless. It's so smooth and breezy, but the beat knocked, too. Unlike De La Soul, whose first couple albums felt like the songs were made up of samples layered on top of each other, this felt like it could have been a live band playing the songs. I love De La by the way so that's not a diss, just an assessment of the sound.
Sing a song o' sixpence, sing it like a singer A Nubian, a Nubian, a proud one at that Remember me, the brother who said "Black is black"
Q-Tip had a knack for mixing sing songy nursery rhyme lines with very positive, very pro-Black lines. This was an important theme in all of their albums. It's evident in their name, their album covers, their style, the samples they used, and many of their rhymes. They were not militant like Public Enemy or aggressively Afrocentric like X-Clan, but Afrocentricity was central to their music. That should not be forgotten when looking back on their discography and their place in music history.
I Left My Wallet in El Segundo
This is widely considered their first single, but apparently it's their second song released. It was definitely the first to make noise though.
It was very catchy and it had a great Spanish sounding guitar sample. I thought Sugar Ray used the same sample for Spread Your Wings and Fly but I was wrong. It sounds like it anyways, just way less obnoxious.
It's a fun song, albeit a little overly silly; a story rhyme that showcased Q-Tip's wit, charm, and slight corniness.
Pubic Enemy
Here, Q-Tip shows how much of a beast he really is. Top notch lyrical performance.
Also, Kool DJ Red Alert hosts this song, meaning he yells a bunch of shit throughout the song. And it's awesome. I just realized Red Alert was all over The Fugees The Score album, and they also used the same sample as Bonita Applebaum for Killin Me Softly. Huh.
Anyways, this is a song based entirely on a sophomoric pun, but it works. Again, it's a little silly. But the beat is groovy, those keys deet deet dee dee dee dee make you want to do the running man (the original one), and Q-Tip's flow is sick (pun definitely intended...if they can do it, I can too).
It's always interesting to hear rappers from the 80s and 90s rap about safe sex. They don't get enough credit for promoting safe sex and decreasing the rate of HIV/AIDS in the 90s and I'm here to change that. Thank you, rappers!
Bonita Applebaum
Boump byoump baddow baow. We all know and love that little breakdown. The Fugees used it to go multi-multi-platinum. Everybody knows the simple yet infectious chorus. The flow is slow and methodical so most people know all the lyrics, too.
Once again, they promote safe sex.I got crazy prophelactics. It had a great video that represents the best of the simplistic 80s-90s hip hop videos: a bunch of young adults just bullshitting and talking about chicks. What made this stand out among a million songs talking about girls was its playfulness and respectfulness. It was one of the first and best hip hop ballads.
Then it ends with a guy repeating sex...sex...sex...freaks.
Classic.
It ends with an outro from Jarobi, who asks, "Can I kick it?" The crowd, of course, replies, "Yes you can!" That question and its reply are etched on the Hip Hop Mount Rushmore...
Can I Kick It?
The song that made them stars yet kept them broke. They hate this song to this day because they are still paying Lou Reed royalties for the sample. I understand Lou Reed wanting to get paid, and the sample is very much a huge part of what makes the song classic, but the bass and the scratching and the other samples add so much. It's really a completely new, different, and unique song. It perfectly showcases the ingenuity of hip hop sampling.
This song featured every fundamental aspect of hip hop: a great chorus, catchy, braggadocious lyrics, great scratches, and a number of both recognizable and unrecognizable samples. The breakdowns are awesome, too. It feels like there are many different sections of the song. The verses, the chorus, and the breakdown where it's just scratching and a keyboard sample. Then everything drops out and it''s just the Lou Reed sample, then the drums start back in. The progressions throughout the song are incredible and keep the listener engaged all the way through.
Q-Tip is great on this song, but personally, I prefer Phife's verse. Mr Dinkins would you please be my Mayor. At his best, he was a perfect paradox: hard but silly, braggadocious but self-deprecating, aggressive but laid back. Overall, he had better punchlines than Q-Tip. More quotables, too. He had a more basic flow, but he absolutely mastered it.
Youthful Expression
The bass (upright bass, maybe? damn I wish I took more music classes) starts in: boom boom boodoo boom. boom boom boodoo boooomm. Then the keys start: dee dee...dee dee dee...dee dee...dee dee dee dee.
This is like their mission statement. It's jazzy and funky and upbeat. There are so many different samples that all fall into one groove, and Q-Tip flows right in the pocket.
Rhythmic lovin, my profession. It's very hippy-ish, but with a very clear African American take on flower power (much like their Native Tongue family members, De La Soul). Tribe was making very pro-Black, positive music without trying to appeal to the mainstream. Eventually, the mainstream caught on.
The piano breakdown at the end is lovely, and then the beat comes back before stopping abruptly.
Rhythm (Devoted to the Art of Moving Butts)
The synths start in and Ali Shaheed Muhammad introduces the song. Q-Tip starts rapping about rhythm. This is an ode to music itself. The chorus is simply whispered voices repeating, I got the rhythm, you got the rhythm.
The main sample is kind of hazy; it has an echo effect, making it feel like the music is circling around your head, engulfing you. You are part of the rhythm.
The rhythm was inside you all along!
Toward the end, Q-Tip talks with some guy in the background. The guy's speaking another language and it's very low so it can hardly be made out. Not sure what they were going for with this, but they do it a few times. It's one thing that could have been cut out. It would have cut down on the extra length of some of the songs, too.
Mr. Muhammad
Hip hop started off with more emphasis on the DJ. The MCs existed to tell the crowd how amazing the DJ was. This is an ode to that area.
Q-Tip raps for two verses about Ali and the art of DJing, then Phife comes in with a quick verse in which he big ups Ali, talks about getting girls, and cracks a few jokes. It's a good album cut, but it's almost filler material. Nothing too memorable.
Ham n Eggs
Was Tribe the first vegetarian rap group? Phife does mention "the occasional steak" so maybe this was more about Ali and Tip's Muslim background.
Or it's just a really silly ass song.
Anyways, this is a classic hip hop trope in the same vein as Lords of the Underground's Sleep for Dinner and dead prez 's classic Be Healthy, but about 20x sillier. Everyone eats, so songs about food are easily relatable.
This could be considered one of their few "MESSAGE!" songs, but it's not preachy. Tribe was never preachy. They were like the older brother or friend who told you what you should do but didn't get upset when you did the opposite. They even make fun of their own message; the chorus is, "I dont eat no ham and eggs cuz they're high in cholesterol, yo (insert name) do you eat em? Nope!" They go around their whole crew and ask the same question. Each time they sing the chorus, there's one guy who replies, "YUP, ALL THE TIME!"
Despite the silliness, it had all the ingredients for a great early 90s rap song: the back and forth rapping, the call and response chorus, the uptempo beat, and a pop culture reference: chicken chicken chicken I'm a finger licking winner (I guess that addresses the vegetarian question.)
They also drop this gem:
Phife: apple sauce and some nice red beets
Q-Tip: this is what we snack on when we're Questin
Both: no second guessin
It's over the top corny, but as I said before, they are having so much damn fun it doesn't matter.
It ends with a Jarobi skit. He and the crowd repeat, Funk...Rhythm. Funk...Rhythm...
Which leads us into...
Go Ahead in the Rain
A sampled voice starts in: Rain all day. There's some thunder and rain sound effects. Then the uptempo beat starts in and the guy repeats huh, what? huh, what?
Q-Tip starts flowing with a slightly deeper voice as the beat keeps pushing forward. Once again, he is mostly talking about music itself: rhythm, grooves, funk, vibes. There's not a lot of substance but it effectively establishes a specific atmosphere and feeling. It's almost impossible not to groove along with the song. This is a spiritual spin-off of Youthful Expression and Rhythm (Devoted to the Art of Moving Butts). Q-Tip even references Rhythm directly in the lyrics. Both are about music and the feeling that Tribe's music is meant to invoke, and both songs prove that they have already mastered the art of moving butts and other body parts.
Description of a Fool
This was actually their first song released. Q-Tip defines "fool" and then directly addresses a fool, who talks back throughout the opening verse.
Q-Tip does this cool, quirky thing where he extends the last syllable of a phrase. Read it to me would ya pleeeease....Whatsa matter with ya boyyyyyy.
The rest of the song is Q-Tip talking about different foolish people. It's decent, but besides having a smooth groove and a long instrumental breakdown to close out the album, there's not much purpose for this song.
I do like the reverberating yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah sample, though.
There you have it! The incredible musical experience that is People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. This is clearly a great album, and it's hard to believe it is their first. It's also hard to believe they would go on to make 2 (if not 3 or 4) better albums. More than anything, this album is about the feeling you get listening to it . Quite simply, it's about the rhythm, and the rhythm is gonna get you.
I was gonna save that line for my review of Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine's album, but I must've lost that tape.
I love hip hop. Loved it since Run DMC smashed through that wall to rock out with Aerosmith. Since Jazzy Jeff rocked the house with the Fresh Prince. Since Tone Loc did the wild thing. I love old school hip hop, I love new school hip hop, I love conscious rap, I love gangster rap, I love underground rap, I love East West Midwest South and Northwest rap. I'm never hesitant to call out what I consider garbage, but I don't label something garbage because it comes from a certain place or time period or subgenre.
Most hip hop fans my age complain that all of today's hip hop is garbage. There's no denying that much of it...could be better. But there is a wide range of artists putting out music that is just as good if not better than anything that came before it.
Many of these complainers came of age in the 90s. In regards to music (and oftentimes movies) nothing will ever compare to what we enjoyed during the formative stages of our lives. Combine that typical glorification of music and entertainment from our youth with the fact that the mid-90s is considered the 2nd Golden Era of hip hop, and it's no surprise that many people refuse to even give today's hip hop a chance.
I completely understand the appeal of that time period in rap. It's a hard era to compete with. There was sooo much good music. Plus, hip hop was just recently breaking through the mainstream; commercials featured (awful) rapping, major movies had soundtracks featuring rappers. Labels were spending big money on production costs and giving all types of experimental artists a chance. The biggest rappers were all over television and radio but they were still edgy.
Not whatever this is.
Hip hop was quickly dominating the entire music industry but there was still an outsider or underground feel to it. Because of all that, plus the 20 year cycle of nostalgia, 90's hip hop is currently viewed as infallible.
Even though so much of it was just awful.
As DJ Shadow explains here...
I always think of the above song when people talk about how great everything was in the 90s. Here, a legendary DJ calls out hip hop...in 1996! Often referred to as the BEST YEAR EVER FOR HIP HOP.
We always seem to forget that KRS-One and A Tribe Called Quest were calling out wack rappers before Lil Yachty Vert's parents even met. We have blocked out the Silkk tha Shockers and Snows and Quos of yesteryear in favor of calling out every Fetty Wap and Tr@vi$ $c0tT we hear today. Wack artists always deserve to get called out, and everybody has a right to their opinion, but the over-generalization of music eras is obnoxious, especially when it comes to hip hop.
It's so funny to see people repeating the same complaints many of our parents had about rap. Literally repeating them word for word: "This isn't music! I can't even understand what they're saying! He's just talking over a beat." Etc. etc.
In a genre like hip hop, which was built off rebellion, off of constantly trying to create something new, it's odd to see so many fans resistant to change. Yet a good portion of hip hop fans are stuck in the 90s. Granted, many of those people are just casual fans and really only like a little Biggie and Wu-Tang mixed in with their heavy metal or Dave Matthews Band, but the "stuck in the 90s rap guy" is so rampant that it has become a trope. It's a damn Complex article subject, and if they're calling something uncool, it's been uncool for a very long time. I understand and share the love for that time period, but I don't see the need for the competition between eras, especially among fans. You didn't make the songs homey! Relax!
All of this animosity discourages discovery of new music and encourages the continued contempt between generations. Hip hop is largely based on competition, and artists should always try to outdo their predecessors and their peers, but there's no need for the hostility between the generations. If older artists supported more young artists, the young artists would probably respect the older artists a lot more and be more receptive to learning from them. Instead, artists, and more annoyingly and loudly, the fans, keep rehashing the same arguments and complaints every generation with every new wave of music. It's tiring.
As a fan, if you're son or daughter or student or friend is listening to a cover song or a song that samples an older song, tell them that and play the original. Tell them about your favorite artists without shitting all over theirs. Try to encourage their discovery instead of pushing your taste down their throats.
This contempt for the current generation of rap has paid off for some people, though. There is a rather large niche market for rap music that is completely grounded in the past. Same types of beats, same flows, same subjects. They see growth and ingenuity as selling out. Or something. Some artists make entire careers off sounding just like New York rappers of the 90s. I'm not mad at it, and some of it is good, but for the most part, if I want to listen to hip hop from the 90s, I have plenty of cassette tapes for that.
Which brings me to my newest blog series....Prof Thug's Diggin in the Cassettes.
That's a transition, kids!
I owned music exclusively on cassette until December 1998, when I got my first CDs for Christmas (Brand Nubian's The Foundation and Busta Rhyme's Extinction Level Event, for the record). This was far past the time most people switched over to CDs. I stuck it out for no other reason than stubbornness. I had a big collection of tapes and didn't want to start over with a whole new technology. Hey, wasn't I just disparaging people for wanting to avoid ingenuity and refusing to change with the times? Huh.
There has been a cassette renaissance lately, and as a cassette connoisseur, I just don't get it. I love the tapes I have because of the music on them, not for the technology itself. I don't view cassettes through the nostalgia-tinted lenses that many people do. Tapes don't sound better. I know CDs are flimsy, but I've also spent countless hours trying to feed the ribbon back into the cassette with a pencil or picking up shards of plastic from a cracked tape. I spent even more hours fast forwarding to side 2 because side 1 had extra space to "preserve continuity." I listened to some horrible album cuts because it was easier than fast forwarding to the next song and then rewinding when you missed the beginning of your favorite song.
So yeah, I loved the era of music when I was listening to cassettes, and I love the act of listening to a full album, but cassettes are one of the worst ways to store and listen to music.
For posterity's sake, and my own pleasure really, I figured I would listen to then write something about each of my cassettes. When deciding to go through with this, I wanted to do organize the posts in some kind of special order, something more creative than alphabetical. I wanted to pull a Rob Gordon from High Fidelity and order the blog posts based on the emotions I had when I purchased the album or something obscure like that. I thought of going in order of when I bought them but I know that one of the first tapes I bought was Tone Loc's Loced After Dark and I don't have that anymore. Oh yeah. I wasn't playing about Tone Loc before.
Funky cold memories.
Ultimately I decided to freestyle it. That seems fitting. I'll start with A Tribe Called Quest. They were one of the first groups to open my eyes to the beauty of hip hop and I love their music to this day. I have all of their albums on cassette, so I can go through their entire discography and evolution as artists. Plus, they are all enjoyable so I won't become discouraged from continuing. I wouldn't start with my LL Cool J tapes, for example, because I'd quit during 14 Shots to the Dome. Sorry, James.
Also, there was a lot of stuff I cut out of my Phife tribute so I already had something to work with and I always look for any shortcut possible. Laziness wins again!
Stay tuned for Vol. 1 of Prof Thug's Diggin in the Cassettes, coming soon!!! I Love You All...Class Dismissed.
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'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.
