d i z t o p i a

Why I Haven't Posted Much in the Last Three Weeks

Shortish version of the story is here. More details to come later, individually and severally, after you (ALL of you) meet me at the bar. For obvious reasons, I likely won't post here next week at all, but I'll try to get back on the beam sometime thereafter. Have a lovely weekend. Support your troops.

Two Personal Philosophies Expressed as Graffiti in the New York Subway

Harvest This

I was a demolition-derby-deprived child, and remain a similarly deprived adult. I caught one tiny glimpse of a demolition derby at the Alabama State Fairgrounds when I was about nine. Then I was hustled off to see prize pigs or some other agricultural abomination. For years after that, my only contact with demolition derby was via an eponymous video game that placed far too much emphasis on protecting your radiator rather than crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, hearing the lamentation of the women, etc.

I finally got a chance to watch the end of a derby in Spokane, WA, while in grad school. It was pretty glorious, as the competitors were a bunch of suicidal hillbillies in dreadnought pickup trucks. And no one seemed to mind when the winner drove his victorious clunker of  a Dodge into the broken spine of his last opponent, again and again and again. They had an amateur event as well, where two people got in whatever car they brought, with the driver blindfolded and the passenger shouting instructions and warnings and generally screaming in terror. I badly, badly wanted to do this. I almost put together a coalition of other grad students to buy an ancient hearse ($400) for use as our derby vehicle, but the cheap motherfuckers wouldn't pony up. The owner assured me the hearse would run for at least forty yards, providing we towed it to the arena.

My last attempt to see a demolition derby was in Birmingham, at those same Alabama State Fairgrounds. It had rained all day, so most of the entrants had not bothered to drive into town. That meant we had two cars: a lurching green Oldsmobile and a woody station wagon. Not much to go on, but I figured there would be a couple good slams. The two cars faced off, or rather, assed off, as they faced away from each other and prepared to zoom backwards to attack. The gun went off, they charged and hit with barely moderate force, and the woody stalled. End of show. Bring out the trophy girls, everyone go home. The two cars barely even broke their tail lights. What a waste.

All of which is why I'm excited by the concept of the Combine Demolition Derby, pictured above. These machines once brought forth life, but now they are devoted to destruction! This derby is also in (Lind) Washington and has apparently been running for years, making me depressed I didn't see it while up there. Oh well. Be sure to check out the rules:  "Iron spears or external iron used for aggressive action is prohibited. NO extra welding on the Cutter Bar Edge, NO welding Rock Guards and Header Bottom, and NO concrete in the platform auger." I guess I can see why they wouldn't want iron spears, but who could possibly object to a little concrete in their auger?

Picking Up Beautiful Girl Has Never Been Easier

It's true! Just click the ad to the right if you don't believe me. Seriously tacky, but I figure all these Austrian net pervs looking for Olsen porn might as well pay the rent. Since Google Adsense rejected diztopia on the basis of too much potty mouth, I'm left with "ExpoActive," who must be seriously strapped for outlets if they're appealing to bottom feeders like yours truly. But they're going to be good to me, I can feel it. At $0.25 a click, I'm only 400 clicks away from my first check. It's gonna be a gold mine. Or maybe that's just the pheromones talking.

I'm Going Downtown to Talk to Mitch and Murray

In a rare (OK, unprecedented) turn of events, I have seen two Broadway productions nominated for Tony awards. Saw Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? with Bill Erwin and Kathleen Turner, and it was wrenchingly excellent. I had never seen the play and only bits of the movie, so this was a tah-reat. Then last week, saw the revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, with Alan Alda, Liev Schrieber, Frederick Weller, Tom Wopat, Gordon Clapp, and Jeffrey Tambor. Fanfuckingtastic and highly recommended as well. Big fan of the movie, of course. The whole cast was good, but Alda and Schrieber in particular blew the roof off. Go forth and see these two. If you live elsewhere, sell enough crack for a plane ticket and orchestra seats. You won't be sorry, especially if you save a little crack for the flight home.

Rediscovering the Recluse

Posting may be light(er) for awhile as I look into some side work... you know, sweeping, baby-sitting, telemarketing, clubbing baby seals, etc. But I was enthused to see this article in Slate about Jack Gilbert, an oddity among Beat-era poets whom I had the pleasure of meeting when he taught at my MFA program in Spokane, WA. I was a Fiction Man, and we had no truck with Poetry Men normally, but everyone had to take one workshop out of their discipline, and I figured, hey, famous poet guy, might as well. Gilbert was in his early seventies then, thin and wispy-haired, but wiry and vibrant and scary like an ancient karate master. Which is sort of what he was, and is. He's a goatish monk, if that makes any sense, and the Slate pieces explains his lifelong conflict between asceticism and pleasure.

Three incidents stand out from Gilbert's months in Spokane. First was at a party, where he was magnetically drawn to a tall, statuesque, blonde student. She was visibly flattered by the attention of this eminence grise, and probably a bit flirtatious... I mean, Gilbert seemed perpetually hornier at 71 than I remember being at 17. He chatted with the girl and her nominal boyfriend, but he always turned the conversation back to their relationship, specifically concrete physical details (though nothing overtly naughty). At some point they were discussing hair, and the boyfriend commented how the girl's hair was so long that sometimes of an evening, he would sit behind her and brush it out. Gilbert rocked back on his heels and squinted, exhaling, "Ahhhhhh, that's nice. Sooo nice." He fairly gleamed with lust. He was so randy, it was cute. Even the boyfriend couldn't bring himself to resent it.

The second memorable occurrence with Gilbert involved me almost accidentally killing him. I drove a moderately dented Chevy Cavalier at the time, and a small fender-bender had damaged the back right door such that you had to really yank (if outside) or push (if in) to get it open. After class one night, I was driving various students plus Gilbert to our respective homes, as we all lived in the same neighborhood. The calculus of the dropoffs worked out such that Gilbert, sitting back right, was the last in the car, creating an odd chauffeur-passenger dynamic between the two of us. But when I stopped in front of his apartment, Gilbert couldn't open his door. I started to get out to come help, which must have really set off his self-reliance instincts (he wasn't feeble, just 71), because he threw his body hard against the door. The door popped open and Gilbert popped out into a snowbank. I gasped, because that snowbank topped a very steep hill that terminated in the rushing, freezing Spokane River. This would be difficult to explain to the university. Fortunately, Gilbert was just stuck in the snow, and had extricated himself by the time I rushed around. He brushed off his coat, gave me a look that was half amused and half accusing, then stomped away.

The last bit is my favorite. Because Gilbert was such a big deal, his one class was packed, and there were several Fiction People like myself on poetry safari. One woman in particular was perhaps the most clueless, gratingly pretentious person I've ever met. We'll call her "Daria" for the sake of a slight joke and to (hopefully) prevent her from tracking me down for castration. Daria was a walkin' talkin' writin'-school stereotype, with a vital though abjectly superficial passion for all possible political and social causes. Humorless, didactic, accusatory, the works. Her writing was almost unendurable, but far worse were her droning and irrelevant monologues when it was her turn to comment on other students' work. During the poetry class, another student submitted a nice and fairly standard sex poem involving some boisterous rolling around in the woods, with crushed brambles and underbrush scratching up the naked bodies of the enthusiastic lovers. Daria held forth on how she saw this as a poem about nature striking back at mankind for despoiling the earth, turning against violent and destructive humans by scratching their naked bodies, etc. The poet in question was obviously appalled, and everyone else in the class (me included) was bored to tears as usual. Normally, the instructors tried to gently deflect and defuse Daria's tirades in some faintly constructive manner before moving on. Gilbert, however, was watching Daria attentively throughout her speech. When she finished, there was a pause while we waited to hear how Gilbert sidelined her. But instead of a diplomatic approach, Gilbert leaned toward Daria and declared, "You're a FREAK."

That was all he said about Daria's critique. It was beautiful. And in tribute, here's a link to my favorite Gilbert poem, "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart." Read it. His new book is Refusing Heaven. Buy it. 

Get Yer T-Shirts, Lion King Tickets, Crack Rock

Stuff On My Cat: just what it says. Ditto: Smoking Monkey. Then there's Ops!, for which I'll steal the perfect Screenhead summary, i.e. "Imperial stormtrooper sees the blaster bolt which has his name on it, and so has a moment of satori before his death." The Adventures of Mr. Coo may sound dirty, but it's a perfectly entertaining and innocent lil' 'toon. Not so with De-Animator, a zombie-shootin' game that really can only end in screaming and dismemberment for all concerned. French AIDS-awareness group AIDES seems to be commissioning all the best ads these days, and they score again with this very well done, funny, and (OK, I'll say it) heartwarming commercial/video. (via)

When you're done killing the undead, it's time to play Kitten Cannon. And check out the online gallery (excerpted above) for graffiti outlaw Banksy. He tags buildings, museums, cows, and pigs, among other objects and creatures. (via)

Plagued by document clutter? You're in luck: it's Virtual Stapler. (via)

Easily the most comprehensive online photo gallery of famous feet. (via)

And rounding out the week, enjoy this hamburger commercial interview with an angry in-utero fetus (use bugmenot to avoid AdAge registration). And let me just say I'm psyched that Stephen Colbert is getting his own Comedy Central show for his clueless prick reporter character from the Daily Show. Perfect work for a slave-banging, Hitler-loving queer.

David Mamet's Rejected Dialogue Work for "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith"

CBC Canada: "[Hayden] Christensen also confirmed recently that Lucas got a helping hand with the script for Revenge of the Sith. In an interview with Playboy, he said the rumours about playwright Tom Stoppard working on the dialogue for the film are true. Stoppard, known for stage works like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, gave the Lucas-penned screenplay a more 'human' dimension, Christensen said."

New York Times: Review of revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross

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PALPATINE: You think you’re queer? I’m going to tell you something. We’re all queer. You think that you’re a thief? So what? You get befuddled by Jedi morality? Get shut of it. Shut it out. There’s an absolute morality? May be. If you think there is, then be that thing. Bad people go to hell? I don’t think so. You ever take a dump make you feel you’d just slept for twelve hours?

ANAKIN: I don’t think ...

PALPATINE: The Jedi Council want control of the Republic ... they’re planning to betray me.

ANAKIN: I have to admit my trust in them has been shaken.

PALPATINE: Why? They asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest, didn’t they? The great fucks that you may have had. What do you remember about them?

ANAKIN: What do I ...?

PALPATINE: Yes.

ANAKIN: Mmm ...

PALPATINE: They asked you to spy on me, didn’t they?

ANAKIN: I don’t know ... I don’t know what to say.

PALPATINE: For me, I’m saying, what it is, it’s probably not the orgasm. Some broads, forearms on your neck, something her eyes did. There was a sound she made ... or, me, lying in bed. She gives me a cigarette, my balls feel like concrete. Eh?

ANAKIN: The Jedi use their power for good.

PALPATINE: Good is a point of view, Anakin. And the Jedi point of view is not the only valid one. The Dark Lords of the Sith believe in security and justice also, yet they are considered by the Jedi to be. . .

ANAKIN: ... evil.

PALPATINE: Through amassing power beyond all measure? No. And what’s beyond all measure? That’s a sickness. That’s a trap. There is no measure. Only greed. How can we act?

ANAKIN: The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inward, only about themselves.

PALPATINE: I say this is how we must act. I do those things which seem correct to me today. I trust myself. And if security concerns me, I do that which today I think will make me secure. And every day I do that, when that day arrives that I need a reserve, (a) odds are that I have it, and (b) the true reserve that I have is the strength that I have of acting each day without fear. According to the dictates of my mind.

ANAKIN: The Jedi are selfless ... they only care about others.

PALPATINE: Or so you’ve been trained to believe. Why is it, then, that they have asked you to do something you feel is wrong?

ANAKIN: I’m not sure it’s wrong.

PALPATINE: A guy comes up to you, you make a call, you send in a brochure, it doesn’t matter. An opportunity. To what? Join the Sith? Perhaps. “There are certain powers of the Dark Side I’d like you to learn.” What does it mean? What you want it to mean.

ANAKIN: Is it possible to learn this power?

PALPATINE: Not from a Jedi. I want to show you something. It might mean nothing to you ... and it might not. I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. (takes out a schematic and spreads it on a table) What is it? The Death Star. “Death Star. Bullshit.” And maybe that’s true; and that’s what I said: but look here: what is this? This is a plan to destroy the Jedi. Listen to what I’m going to tell you now.

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101 Stories About 101

Monday's post of classic student quotes from my teaching days reminds me how much I loathed teaching, and how glad I am never to engage in such ever again. If only I had been allowed to crush those defiant kids with a bulldozer, just like the caped crusader in this startling Tiananmen Square cover image (from Scott H as always, click to enlarge--right on, driver). Sadly I could not legally operate heavy machinery, so I had to try and crush them in other ways. If nothing else, I did come out of two years of teaching-assistant hell with a hefty grab-bag of Amusing Anecdotes®, collected below. Most of these I've told to friends (or in their hearing) dozens of times, so if you remember, try to say them along with me! Probably more to come if I stay sober long enough to recall.

Revenge of the Ditz: In my very first English 101 class, one (otherwise quite bright) girl didn't like the whole no-grades, portfolio-writing structure. In particular she didn't like my disinterest in justifying why this or that instruction had to be obeyed. It was like she questioned the whole college teacher authority paradigm! Madness. I don't know what she was worried about, as she had no problems with the writing assignments and had excellent grades. I must have enforced some correction that challenged her A-student egomania. Anyway, we clashed on a number of occasions, frequently "resolving" with Mexican standoffs where I would conclude by saying, "There's really no point to discussing this any further. Moving on." She would narrow her eyes like the cobra, oh yes she would. Unfortunately for me, she was also quite athletic, and imagine my surprise and horror to find her among my opponents in the coed soccer league the next quarter. I was goalie on a cheerfully inept team of grad students, most of whom were habitual smokers, copious drinkers, eaters of fatty flesh, recreational drug enthusiasts, and averse to exercise generally. About halfway through the game -- after toying with me from afar with a few easily blocked lobs -- my nemesis charged in and drilled a shot at me from close range. The ball smashed me directly in the face. No goal, but that wasn't the point, was it? I staggered backward and salvaged about two microns of dignity by not falling over, but I was just coherent enough to see the girl trotting off, pumping her fist and fairly incandescent with gleeful triumph. Rest assured she figured prominently in my own revenge fantasies for months afterward.

Royal Notice: Another student was a fine young man of Kuwaiti origin. What he was doing in Spokane, WA, is anyone's guess. He periodically flew to London on weekends to see his father, who owned a chain of Mercedes dealerships in Kuwait City. This kid was so rich he would actually have to hire someone to hire someone ELSE to kill me. Anyway, one Monday after one of these weekend trips, he didn't show up in class. Not on the following Tuesday either. Our fascist composition department had a very strict zero-tolerance policy on absenteeism; either you had a specific note from a physician, or you got three absences for the quarter, then you failed. So when the kid showed up on Wednesday looking fine, I approached him about the looming badness of two unexcused absences. He promptly and apologetically handed me a sealed envelope. This envelope and the single sheet of paper it contained were so dense and creamy that they could have been classified as dairy products. The stationery was from the office of the Royal Physician in Extraordinary to the Queen of England, certifying that the young Kuwaiti had been struck down with flu and unfit for airplane travel until Tuesday evening. To this day I kick myself for not holding out for a free Mercedes to seal the deal.

Blood Simple: During the final essay exam, students had to remain silent. They could raise their hand to ask me a question, and I would approach their desk and hear their plea. However, they could only ask me dictionary-type questions (definitions or spelling), or questions about the essay question itself. One girl raised her hand, and I leaned in to hear what she wanted. She reared back a little, stammered a quick, "oh, excuse me," and let loose a titanic sneeze. Unbeknownst to us both, she was also on the brink of a massive nosebleed. She sprayed blood all over my arm, left side, her desk and essay, and the back of the student in front of her. She shrieked and ran out of the room. I froze for a second, looking in amazed disgust at my arm and hand, and then calmly led the bloody-backed student over to the restroom, where we washed up. I told him to go finish his exam, then I stopped by the department office to let them know what happened. (They were amused, and said to let them know if the student was ill, or if I got AIDS.) I returned to class to find the bloody-sneeze girl already back in her desk. I asked if she was OK and she said yes, and she apologized, obviously mortified. Eventually, time was called, and essays were handed in. After the girl left, other students asked me what happened, and I explained. They looked visibly relieved, and said that when we three left the room earlier, there had been animated discussion -- some of the students were convinced I had punched the student in the face, resulting in the spray of blood. You can tell you're dealing with a bunch of rough-and-tumble farm kids when, despite this possibility, they all just returned to writing their essays.

Seduction By the Innocent: I had just shaved my head, a dramatic shift from my typical frizzed-out shoulder-length locks of the time. In my creative writing class, there was one lil’ goth chick who wrote a series of bland Stephen King ripoff stories. There was some good detail work though, and she was a fine student otherwise. Part of the class routine was a one-on-one meeting with each student halfway through the quarter, where the student read their current story aloud, then we discussed. She and I met in my tiny office and went through her story. I was reading over one paragraph and pointing out good bits and pieces, when I looked up to see her staring at me as if hypnotized. She breathed huskily, "I loooove your hair." Despite several precedents from colleagues, I wasn't ready for student-teacher freakin' in the office, so I delicately and nerdily steered the conversation back to the work. I don't think her heart was in it, though. If I'd known baldness was such an aphrodisiac, I'd have shaved back when I was a nubile coed myself.

Starving Artist: My last English class took place in the evening at the urban extension campus, so it was mostly what we euphemistically call "adult students" (insulting both to adults and students). One of these was the bitterest man I ever met in Washington state, a place known for bitterness. He was in his early 30s and married to a shrew of a wife. He worked as some kind of obscure banking assistant, but his dream was to be a sculptor. His evil wife, however, thought that his art was a waste of time, so she forced him to sculpt only in the basement, and only in one corner. He told me once that if his wife found any sculpture, tools, or materials outside a clearly demarcated line in that corner, she would throw them away. Actually drive them to a dumpster somewhere so he couldn't retrieve them. She apparently performed this check while he was in my class, so he was always preoccupied, wondering if he'd violated the line of death, and if his artwork would be gone when he got home. This is why Spokane produces so many serial killers.

Low-Interest Clones: I was teaching the class with the embittered sculptor when the story of Dolly the cloned sheep hit the media. Since we studied rhetorical writing, I always seized on any issue that could be clearly separated into for/against sides. (Capital punishment and abortion were both forbidden topics, as students instinctively regurgitated the most trite, brainless arguments available.) Given all the scary talk about scary clones that Dolly caused, I though this would be a fun one. Plus, we're actually arguing about cloning! It was so sci-fi. Anyway, imagine my surprise and disappointment when it became clear that the class did not seem scared or threatened at all by cloning. Despite all the hue and cry from religious spokespeople, none of the highly religious students objected to cloning. So, I tried to imagine the most morally objectionable cloning scenario possible. "What if," I said ominously, "the government found one really strong, durable guy, and cloned him a million times over to create a ... SLAVE RACE OF CLONES!" (cymbal crash!) ... No reaction. If anything, they seemed mildly attracted to the idea of slave-clones handling society's crap jobs. Finally, as I continued to prod them for possible negative consequences, one hand went up. I eagerly called on the student, one of the few younger college-age kids. "What if," he said, "the clones rebelled against us?" Hmmmm ... well, naked self-interest isn't exactly moral outrage, but it's a start. "Good point!" I said, beaming. "So, to prevent rebellion, let's say we engineer our grunt-clones to have only the most rudimentary intelligence. We'll factor down their brainpower to that of a toddler!" Dramatic pause! Imagine this horrible future of retarded clone slaves! Another hand went up. Yes, you! Older female student in the back who has never spoken until now! "Maybe," the lady whispered uncertainly, "we should keep them down more? Like, only as smart as a dog?" Other students nodded. There you have it. Moral quandary solved. So much for all your dithering, egg-headed bioethicist wimps.