squidbag

the SPAT

I've been going to training for the past month to become a certified literacy tutor.  This has been an interesting experience, mostly for the other people I've met there, but also because of the new knowledge I fit into my head.  We "graduated" Monday night, and now I'm looking forward to getting started with my new learner after I get back from ATL Turkey Fest X.

Some moments of some of these meetings have been kind of a challenge - there is always one crazy person who doesn't seem to know that they're crazy, and then another one who's kind of deliberately reflexively crazy and keeps bringing it up, along with how different they are, how outsidery they've always been, and so on.  Sat next to ME.  Awesome.

There were a couple of times when this non-faith based initiative's volunteers veered into decidedly religious conversation, mostly about using the Bible as a tool for reading, which makes sense, but then sometimes about sneaking a little faith in on folks "as a structure" for other things.  Look, I've watched Mike Holmes, and the structure is what makes everything else work and stand up and look right, so I see what you tried to do there, and I want you to stop it, otherwise harmless man.  There was also one extended yogic riff on taking "centering breaths" and I could only think "I wish you'd take your final breath," which misses the point, but he just went on and on.

One of my favorite ideas was on the last night of our training.  We were told that we could administer a GED-type test for high school level aptitudes.  One of my fellows asserted, as we looked over samples of the test, that she didn't think she would pass this if she took it right now.  Another said that she wished this would be given to college students, and if they flunked it, they don't belong in her class, so get out.  I said, "I think we should apply that universally.  If you don't have the skills to do what you're doing, you have to stop and re-train, and re-test.  We should test drivers every year, anyone who owns a gun, and re-certify people on the issues and Constitution before they vote."

This was not as popular an idea as I had hoped (I make friends), even after I named it the SPAT, or Specialized Personal Aptitude Test.  Not Achievement, like most of these things are called - just Aptitude.  It could be randomized, or called upon by certain events.  You could test people on social skills, or Emily Post-type stuff, then demand they go back and figure out how to behave decently when they fail.  If you're in a religion, your Holy SPAT could be coming at any time, so don't flap your gums unless you know your shit.  Driving's a huge one for me.  History.  Marketing.  Politics.  Child Psychology and Development should be pre-requisites for all parents.  Or you know, just mix everything up and give it once a year.  You don't have to do really well at the SPAT - just demonstrate aptitude.  I don't think a lot of folks could even do that.

The Potter Standard

A little over a decade ago, along with everyone else, I got sucked into the Harry Potter whirlwind.  The first two books were already out by the time I started reading them, and so I got to be among the people in the grip of Pottermania when the fourth through seventh books came out.  We got the happy, brightly wrapped Amazon packages in the mail, and we got in long-ass lines for the movies.  We talked about the series with other people, and I really got into it.

Up to a point.

I remember it beginning with the fourth book in the series.  I finished it and thought, "Bleagh.  Well, maybe she'll pull it out with the next book."  She didn't, and the slow downward slide into mediocrity became inexorable and dark.  I have never quite gotten over it, mostly because I have not been allowed to, since I am always hearing about how bloody wonderful these books are compared to everything else.  How magical and like a romp.  What?  You mean with all the death?  All the mutilations, families broken asunder, rejection, terror and chaos?  The fucking Dursley reset button at the beginning of each one?  That stuff?

I am sick and fucking tired of this mostly baseless veneration of Harry Potter and JK Rowling as the bar up to which other children's books can only hope to measure.  Anyone who is being honest with themselves about this series has to admit two things: the books fell off in quality as she pushed through them for a ravenous audience of fans, book publishers and Hollywood people, and she got gruesome and violent for the sake of it when she wrote herself into a corner.  I think there are deaths that happen in those books because she had written too many characters to fit into the final battle, so she started slaughtering people.  Or possibly to raise the stakes, but there are other ways of doing that, too.  Whatever.  Characters are not toys.  If everyone dies, that is a Tragedy.  (No, I know - not really.)  The series is only okay in totality, has a detailed mythology that passes for richness and is very imaginative.  It gave the world Hermione Granger and Rubeus Hagrid, both of whom I love (even if they don't truly come to life until they hit film) so I can't blast her for that.  However.  It's not a high watermark for children's literature in any way other than sales.  Try reading all seven to/with a kid that's not aging as fast as Harry does.  Good luck with that.

Neil Gaiman writes better and more literate stories for kids, and so does Rick Riordan.  Roald Dahl didn't cease to exist when Rowling was born, either.  Tolkien is a better option if you want magical storytelling, and so is C.S. Lewis, though my heart blackens & dies a little when I say it.  Every kid needs to hear the Lorax about once a month, too.  Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary?  The Big Nate and Wimpy Kid books?  Sendak, Van Allsburg?  Lemony Snicket?  What about Philip Pullman?  Jeff Smith's Bone series?  Finally, any kid that can handle the 7th Harry Potter book ought to be handed Jules Verne, Sherlock Holmes, Le Morte d'Arthur, or H. Rider Haggard.  I would be willing to bet you my friend Poesy Galore (while probably not in agreement with my overall thesis) could make you a list as long as a Norwegian Ridgeback of better books for kids than the Potter series, which I suspect is a gateway series for Stephenie Meyer.  I'm just saying.

And to be clear: I have nothing personal against Ms. Rowling, especially since she gave the world joy and contributes so much to charity and generally, probably, makes the world a better place.  I just think she punked out on the last part of the series and that some honesty about that is called for.  [DEFINITION: "Nothing Personal" when I say it means there would no assault when I met the person, simply a "Hey, I liked most of your stuff - too bad you punked out there at the end."]

Go on and see your movie(s), I've said my bit.

The Gay Agenda

So these are a thing.  Gay Agenda Pads.

In reality, they exist, I helped make them.  There was a conversation on my porch like, a month ago now, and we - me and some non-straight people - decided that the world would be a better, funnier place if these pads were actually available for consumption by the general public.  For the leaving on the desks of pastors, scout leaders, and stupid teabagger fucks.  So I made a design from my brains after procrastinating for a week or so, and I shot it through a brass and ivory vuvuzela it over to SuperMeredith Hansel who pointed guns at a printing company while they masturbated for awhile and made phone calls and found special pink paper made from endangered panda sex organs - where the tissue is harvested from frigid pandas, dried, pounded flat and rolled into fine writing paper - and got some notepads done by making ink go onto the paper.

They're currently three bucks a pop, which is inherently funny, but they'd be a lot cheaper if we sold what is, in the current vernacular, known as a fuckton of them.  That's slightly bigger than a shitload, which is two asswagons more than a lot.  Not 'alot,' which is wrong.  Order a damn pad.  Three dollars, and you too can subvert the dominant paradigm by promoting the gay agenda.  And, you know, seven other things.  Send money to me via PayPal at the address that's already here, and I'll pay Mer, and we'll send you pads.  You might consider something for shipping, too.  There's no business plan here.  We have pads.  Fucking buy one, this is not a museum.

Copyright me, 2010.  Pricks.

Wilderness

I stand on an icy, windswept promontory and with a sense of satisfaction overlook a glassy lake, its surface black and smooth.  Jutting out of the otherwise uninterrupted surface of the water is an icy finger of white, a dagger of inverted icicle, pointing at the Kodak clear blue sky, itself dotted with white clouds on their way to nowhere.  On a day this clear, you'd fancy that you could see Russia from here if such a thing were indeed possible.  It isn't.  Not from here.

I've been planning this thing for a long time now, but it's tough to get any time alone with media whores, attention magnets, the puckered sphincters of American entertainment, spurting out shit and smearing it with unwashed hands and half-formed thoughts until the lines between what you need to know and every other imaginable thing are completely obscured, cease to exist, are cast down and forgotten relics of a quaint and cute little time before the now, which is all anybody can remember.  Dropped into the cold wilderness, no escape planned, there's only so many times you can read the same comic books and White Fang.  I ran out of tiny liquor bottles a long time ago.  It finally happened, though, as I knew that it would - she came out here alone, without cameras, hunting or hiking or hiding something, it no longer matters - and now the gentle rise of fallen snow behind me on the ridge obscures the shallow, frozen grave of Sarah Palin.

Soft shoes on snow.  She heard nothing, and there was just the mask coming off at the end.

No one will really mourn her.  She'll generate about as much news coverage in death as she did in what passed for her life, but even her idiot, xenophobic, half-educated, false celebrity family will make the morning and evening and afternoon and brunchtime fucking talk show circuit and chat the woman into legend instead of mourning her.  They might get another unwatchable cable show out of it - Sarah Palin's Alaskan Grave.  And she'll still be gone.  Which is all that matters as I clean my knives for the thousandth time.  She had to die - even if I hadn't done it, one of the bears or moose or caribou or some fucking woods thing would have smelled the stink of desperation and fear, that all-encompassing dread that someone, somewhere would get their hands on an IQ test or texts or unburned records or something, and that maybe, this time, inert Americans would roll over and care, and she'd become undone.  Predator to prey, the wind shifts just like that.  Sometimes it shifts back, and I couldn't take that chance.

I am confident that the future will thank me, and that's why I have no exit strategy.  Any moment now, a rift in space will open up, and time travelers from the future, able to pinpoint better than any of my contemporaries the significance of what I've done, and being fully aware of the debt that Western civilization, and indeed, the world, owes me, will step out from their time machine and offer me safe passage to the distant future, where I shall live a quiet life among the eco-terrorists and pansexual madpeople who rule the world with grey ethics when things swing back another way.  Eco-terrorists have no meat, though, which is why I've been making moose or caribou or some fucking thing jerky for weeks; I'll have to ease my transition into the tofuture.

I smile as the air goes ozone behind me.

Opportunity on Craigslist

From Craigslist Nashville, "Gigs:"

"I need a nearly newborn baby to play the role of baby Jesus for a Christmas video. The baby will be held, cuddled, etc. by an actress portraying Mary. There is no compensation but you will get a copy of the video. The video will be posted to YouTube and other popular sites to promote a beautiful Chirstmas song by a Nashville songwriter."

From my return email:

"I am a 36-year old man living in Murfreesboro, and would love to play the part of the newborn Baby Jesus in your Christmas music video.  I have natural on-screen charisma, and really think I could get to the heart of the motivation for the newborn savior.  I look good in swaddling clothes, and am not allergic to hay.  I love animals and virgins.  I also like to be held and cuddled and et cetera.  Especially et cetera.  That would be all the compensation I need, and I feel like I could really bring a lot to this role and your ensuing campaign of YouTube videos and whatnot.  I will shave off my beard if need be.  I do not think discriminating against me based on age is legal.  Thank you.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Not a Real Blog Entry

It makes me mildly ill whenever someone talks about someone changing their sexual orientation (particularly when either referring to bisexuals or, even worse, discounting their validity or existence, since, after all, bisexuals are the best friends of the human race) as switching teams.  "Switching teams," really, columnist prick?  When you must use the language of sports to convey things which run deeper than sports, and are more important than sports, then you are a Republican.  End of story.  And whilst you gibber in a froth of your own making, permit me to ask this: Who would win?  If the Hets and the Homos had a big game coming up this weekend, who wins?  I mean, we got teams, right?  So we must be opposed, so there has to be the Sexuality Bowl coming up sometime towards the end of the season, whenever the fuck that is.  Who you got your money on?

My kids are doomed.  "Daddy, what's the difference between a fib and a lie?"  "A fib is an untruth of no importance, like telling someone you didn't get them a gift, when really you did, or something not true that furthers a higher purpose, like boosting someone's self-esteem or laying the foundation for a practical joke.  Lies are dark, nasty untruths that erode trust, love and empathy between human beings."  This was off-the-cuff, and it's only as I reflect on it that two things occur to me: one, it's a tad harsh, and two, my four and half year-old knows what erode means.  I went back and asked.  "It's like when something's slowly not there anymore."  That works for now, yeah.

I'm not a Stupid Tea Party Fuck, but if I were, I think I'd be highly suspicious of the people I voted for who won on Tuesday.  I thought this whole election was supposed to be about "the economy, stupid" as the Snakehead famously once coined, but it seems as though since the numbers came in, the freshmen have been rattling on about nothing other than repealing Obamascare, which, putting aside whether or not they have any chance of doing it, is not what they were elected to do.  Jobs, bitches!  Unless there are a lot of jobs to be created in the "attacking the new health care system" sector, I'm seeing some disconnect here.  I suspect that this is the failing endeavor that they put out there knowing that they can't win, they push it and fail, blame it on the Dem Prez with veto and then go back to the sheep in 2012 with the "we need all three houses" to overturn argument.  But what do I know?

Read more Malcolm Gladwell this weekend, and saw Megamind with the kids.  Megamind would have been great had it preceeded Despicable Me.  As it stands, it's just good.  Watched the original 1954 Gojira with Max, too.  My kid likes black and white movies; that's Gojira, Citizen Kane, 12 Angry Men, and the The Day the Earth Stood Still that he's sat through so far.  And he's a discussion group person, too.  "Let's talk about what we saw."  

I'm amused by you people who can feel an hour's worth of difference in your sleep schedule, or whose circadian rhythms are tied to the sun.  Spring forward, Fall back, I can't tell the difference other than the sun comes up as I'm getting up now other than shortly thereafter.  And the King George III thing.

Finally, today is my mom's birthday.  Go harass her with birthday fishes.  Or squishes.  Whatever.

What It's Like

It's like this: you and a casual friend are together.  Your friend is not someone you know too awfully well, but someone with whom you feel okay about doing small things, like walking, which is what you are doing.  You have walked a few miles over varying terrain, up a winding path, say, over a creek, hopping across stones and running across a crosswalk, dodging traffic and the occasional bicycle messenger.  You may have had to hop a fence, or avoid other pedestrians.  In fact, all of this is quite likely.  Towards the end of your walk, you suddenly come upon a single six-inch step, which you quickly mount as your friend stops dead in his tracks.

"What's the problem?"

"That step."

"What about it?"

"I can't take it."

"Sure you can, just step up.  It's a very small step.  It's short, about this high.  I totally just did it.  You can do it, too."

"I can't.  I don't believe in it."

"The fuck you mean, you don't believe in it?  It's right there.  In front of you.  Look, I'll help you."

"No.  I think it's wrong."

"The step is wrong?"

"I believe it's wrong to take that step.  That's what I believe.  I don't think you should have done it, either.  It goes against things I believe in."

"Heh.  Okay.  I'm going to go into this building right here with the a/c and water, and all the people who think taking that step is just fine, and I'm going to leave you here, as I see no further choice in the matter, and can't fathom how you got to the position that you're in.  Bye."

That is what it's like.