Fire

I’ve always been a firebug. That’s the g-rated name we use for the mild case of pyromania that most of my mother’s side of the family has in our genes. So it was fitting that I got to spend a few nights of my last week in Champaign building bonfires. I learned to build fires from extensive practice, Boy Scouts, my mother, and my grandfather.

My grandfather was the real firebug. He only ever taught me one explicit lesson about fire, the rest I gathered from observation. His one rule was: “A burn won’t kill you.”

When I was in high school we had a swimming unit, and one of the more embarrassing things in this world that I can admit to is that when I was in high school I was put in the “beginners swim” group. I’m a bad swimmer at best, and that’s fueled largely by an intense fear of being submerged. While it isn’t actually a full-blown case of hydrophobia, having my head under water is my least favorite thing in life.

Strangely, some of my most important memories have to do with water. The first time I stood on the beach of the Pacific and stared west when I was 17 was one of the first moments of my adult life in my mind.

And two summers ago I went to Dixon to visit with friends and jumped off a cliff into the Rock River. It might sound small, but it scared the living shit out of me and made me completely at peace at the same time.

Water is archetypal for salvation, and I dream about it a lot, especially lately.

I’ve been trying to think about some wise things that I could try to say about what I’ve learned in college, on the wisdom that I’ve gained up to this point in my life. It’s the kind of reflective process that I think people should go through when they’re moving through phases of their life.

In fact there are only two phases of life: either you’re doing what you’re doing, or you’re getting ready for the next thing. When you’re out of phase, you’ve got your head up your ass.

Actually, I did come up with something.

As I see it, human beings move through the only dimension that matters, time. I picture life as being like walking backwards through time. At best, able to understand the present moment and what’s come before. And that’s best-case scenario.

And that’s all it is, walking backwards without ever knowing what’s coming next. But what I love about people is that even though they never will, they keep trying to turn their heads around to see what’s next.

And then wisdom, if there is such a thing, is just learning when to pick up your feet.

As I look back over my three-year college experience I can honestly say that there are very few things I wish I had done.

There are a whole ton of things I wish I hadn’t done.

Like a lot.

A lot, a lot.

Soooooo many things.

But there’s almost nothing I wish I had done. Few chances I passed on, and almost nothing I was too afraid to do. This gives me great peace.

Because a burn won’t kill you. And it’s a whole lot better than being too scared to take the plunge.

As I sat in graduation I thought back through all of the rituals that I’ve ever been through. Partially because my graduation from college was the emptiest ritual I’ve ever been through.

Most of the ceremony was an infomercial for the Alumni Association.

It’s supposed to signify the end of an era, the progression to a new phase. That it’s time to get ready for the next thing.

What I wanted it to feel like was a baptism. Washing away the old life and taking the first breath of a new one.

That’s what I would’ve liked the ceremony to feel like, a baptism. A change.

And given my other problems, an incredibly frightening few seconds with my head under water.

Water

Thanks for reading. I’ve enjoyed it, and I hope you have.

Which reminds me of the other thing I’ve learned in college, though I learned it from Six Feet Under:

Once upon a time, a wise man said, Every day we must dance, if only in our minds. Why do we dance? Because we are happy to be alive. So every day we must dance, to say, Thank you, God. Thank you for life.

I auditioned recently to be the senior speaker for the College of Business graduation ceremony and was not chosen. I toyed with the idea of filming myself and posting a video of me in a borrowed cap and gown doing it anyway, but ultimately decided that gesture was a little too pissy, even for me. Here is the speech that I was going to give:

By way of introduction, my name is Carl Newman, and I’m getting a degree in business administration with a concentration in entrepreneurship today. Actually, that’s not true. Today, I’m getting the decorative leather cover for said degree. But I’m thinking about putting this dress back on when the real thing comes in the mail, just to get the full experience.

I should also mention that I’ll be attending law school in the fall, and if you think that my decision to stay in school is somehow, partially a way of avoiding the real world – then you are smart enough to graduate from the University of Illinois. I know I’m not alone on going to grad school, especially with the job market the way it is. Really, I couldn’t be more impressed with those of you who have secured high-paying, full-time jobs in your desired fields. In fact if all six of you could raise your hands, just to get some recognition.

I’m going to try not to make too many bad economy jokes today. People are hurting, cutting hours and pay, and jobs. What’s really demoralizing is that, if your job hasn’t already been cut, then at best there’s a general feeling of job insecurity in the private sector right now. It’s almost enough to make you think, “Gosh, being a business professor wouldn’t be so bad after all.”

But it would. I mean, as a professor in the prestigious University of Illinois College of Business, day in and day out, it’s hard. Working sixty, or even seventy hours… and that’s every semester. When you get that huge pile of group projects, and midterm exams, and… iClicker questions, when you take that enormous pile of work, and hand it over to your TA, you can get carpel tunnel that way.

Actually, there’s a part of me that sees an upside to graduating in times like these. I’ve said before the true wealth is found in the spirit. And these days the best available wealth is spiritual. You know, invisible, imaginary, that kind of thing.

I recently read the novel White Fang for the first time. Jack London has an interesting turn of phrase in describing the nature/nurture dynamic. He calls the natural instincts of a creature “clay,” and the effect of the environment molds this clay as “the thumb of experience.”

I feel that dynamic at play for me today. Both of my parents earned post-graduate degrees, and I grew up in a town where virtually everyone went to college. Because of how I was raised and born, the clay I’m made of and the way that the thumb of experience has worked on me, I ended up here today. I guess what I mean to say is:

I never wanted to go to college.

I mean, I’m glad I did it. I’m just saying that due to circumstances beyond my control, the thought of not attending college never entered my mind.

So it’s a little strange for me when people extend congratulations. Every time someone says , “Congrats, Grad” I think –

“But it wasn’t my idea!”

As a side note to address a pet peeve: You should never actually say “Congrats, Grad.” If you have a card that says it, fine, but you shouldn’t ever say it out loud. Go ahead and use the full words. I know we’re the text message generation, but I didn’t finish 124 credit hours for your abbreevs.

Now then there’s something I did in college that was my idea, something I need to get off my chest, but I just can’t. And by that I mean that there’s a giant tattoo on my chest.

Of course, it would be inappropriate for me to rip this dress off and show you, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you it’s a life size portrait of economics professor, Canadian, and Mr-Magoo-Look-Alike - Fred Gotheil.

Actually, it’s a piece of album art from a Flaming Lips album I like.

Now to be fair, part of why I got the tattoo was because I’m in some ways an Anti-conformist, and that’s part of the clay I’m made of. Partly I got it because in the circles I run in, I was persuaded that getting a tattoo isn’t the end of the world, and I suppose you might call that the thumb of experience.

But there was a third reason that I paid my hard-earned money to have a needle repeatedly pierce ink into my skin-

It looks really cool.

What London’s paradigm in White Fang fails to account for is any kind of free-will, the part of our make up that we, ourselves, control. Apart from any inherent essence or predisposition, separate from the effect of reckless happenstance, there is another variable: the ability for the individual to guide his own growth and development. And just like my tattoo, it’s the marks that we choose to put on ourselves that matter most.

It is in this area that my real college education has occurred. And I hope all of you will agree, that we are more than the sum of where and to what we were born, more than a reaction, a cause and effect of what’s been done to and for us. That on some level we are capable of deciding the kind of people we want to be.

For whatever reason, when we were applying to college, the selling point that everyone seemed to be pushing was “Diversity.” Which to me read as code for, “Not WASPs like you, Carl.” So I can only assume the diversity angle was an appeal to my suburbanite white guilt.

I’m certainly not saying that diversity isn’t important, nor am I saying that U of I isn’t a diverse place, but-

As a high school senior, I looked through a 40 page view book filled with pictures of, supposedly, U of I students, and in each picture, never more than a third of the people in the picture are of the same ethnic or racial group.

Since I was smart enough to get into this school, I’m smart enough to know that is, like, statistically impossible.

Whatever the prospective student material actually says, the way those diversity pages read to me was:

“U of I. Never more than three white guys together at one time.”

See, that diversity angle is missing something, and it’s the same thing that Jack London was missing in White Fang. Yes, it’s important to be exposed to people who look different, who think different, who’s beliefs, and goals are different from your own. It’s important to meet people who are made of another kind of clay, whom the thumb of experience has molded into a different shape and for a different purpose.

But it’s important not just because it’s interesting. Or because it’s practical. It’s important because it helps you, the student, to see the myriad possibilities for yourself, and to learn from them what you want to be.

So I want to suggest a new angle, throw all the diversity stuff away.. And in place of talking about diverse backgrounds, about diverse experience, just simply say this:

At the university of Illinois, you’ll find everything you need to decide what kind of person you want to be, and then become it.

Because that’s what education is really for, and that’s the hardest thing to learn, and that’s the reason we’re here today. Not because we made it through the right number of classes in the proper order, we’re here to celebrate the people who are leaving here today, and how different they are from the people who came here a few years ago.

I want to thank all of you for allowing me to speak toady, and further, all of you, who in ways large and small, taught me the kind of man I want to be. Thank you, and congratulations to the class of 2009.

Post-Virginia cop, the only important thing about the drive to New York is that when you get on the Jersey Turnpike, I’m pretty sure that God strikes you down if you don’t put on some Bruce Springsteen.

It’s those little moments of victory that really get us through the day.

When I got to New York City, Michael and I went out to eat right away. He explained my options as the following: “Italian, Chinese, or Pan-Asian.” In my mind I immediately tried to grasp the difference between Chinese and Pan-Asian. I understand that “pan” means “all” in Latin, but I could not think of what was on a pan-asian menu.

I wouldn’t say that I’m uncultured, but Michael and I have talked before about what he calls my “Blue Collar Complex.” For example, I was telling a story to him that featured the following detail:

Me: We went to this sushi place, and I ordered a steak.

Michael: You would.

Michael’s right in his diagnosis, and quite frankly, his high-culture Columbia Manhattan friends do bring it out of me a little more than usual.

But the reason I mentioned going out to dinner for Pan-Asian cuisine is because there are places in this world that, though I wouldn’t go as far as saying they make me uncomfortable, I will say that I find myself feeling that I don’t belong. When Michael and I sat down in this restaurant next to two men in their yuppie uniforms (both typing on their blackberries) I thought,

“This is not a place for a kid who wears the same pair of jeans for two or three weeks at a time.”

But Michael has been my best friend since we were eight years old. I’ve written before about the fact that I have less than a dozen clear memories of my life before I knew michael. And when you spend thirteen years with someone that close to you, the effect you have on each other becomes sort of Pavlovian. Just being in Michael’s presence calms me.

Actually, I didn’t really do much of anything in New York. Michael and I went out to dinner with some family of mine, which was wonderful, though I know it can be irritating to have Michael and I as dinner companions, as my Aunt Kathy told my mother, “It’s like they speak in shorthand.”

It’s just that we always know what the other is talking about.

When my family vacations, we do nothing. We read, we eat big meals, we go for a walk, we read, we have a fire, we read some more. And this system works well for us (except my sister Emily, not much of a sitting-still type). And by that criteria, my stay in New York was really the only part of my extended road trip that was actually a “vacation.”

The first time I went to Columbia when Michael and I were freshmen, I had a very slight twinge of regret. Ivy league was a direction that I decided not to go, and when I first stepped onto the Columbia campus, I thought about the path that I could’ve taken. And this came at a time when I felt like my education was bullshit (my freshmen year).

Visiting now, I understand that I chose right when I came to the University of Illinois, because I would’ve hated to be around a lot of Columbia students, and it would have only worsened my intellectual elitism and my intellectual vanity.

Plus, I would’ve never gotten as good at beer pong.

(See: Blue Collar Complex).

A minor anecdote about the Columbia campus, though. Columbia certainly has that Ivy-League upper-crust feel to it for the most part (with a strong dose of what I, as a registered Democrat, would call “Irritating Liberalism”).

I was reading on the Columbia quad, and like my father before me, I’m an eavesdropper. Two men walked by having either a heavy conversation, or a mild-debate about the scientific principle of entropy as it applied to a particular set of circumstances. The next two people to pass by were two girls, and all I heard of their conversation was:

First Girl: My Ex has been sending me these text messages that say, like, “Hey, wanna get coffee?”

Second Girl: As if you don’t know that means, “Hey, wanna have hate-sex?”

First Girl: I know!

And I thought, “See, they are just like the rest of us.”

After some restful time with Michael, it was back to Ohio for one last night, and then home to Champaign.

But a funny thing happened when I was eating hangover breakfast/lunch in Ohio before I started the drive home. I started to think about Champaign as a home, and as I began my drive, I began to freak out.

Since the very start of this year, there has been really only one thing on my mind:

“GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.”

All year I’ve been on this, “I’m ready to get out of this place” kick, and the truth is, I am. College was not as educational as I wished it would be, and really, feels more like waiting to start my life. And to quote Mad Men:

“Waiting is a bunch of bullshit.”

But as I was driving home from Ohio and thinking about my trip, and thinking about the fact that I only have a few weeks left of college, and not that much longer left in this town, I started to feel sad.

When the time comes that a new stage of our lives is beginning, there is only one to choice: to jump in. When it’s time to move on, nostalgia attempts to hold us in place. But staying won’t keep the good things going, it will only make them taste less sweet.

And I’m ready for the next thing. But there is a life that I’ve built for myself in Champaign that I’ve only just begun to realize is soon to disappear, and that is a sad thing to me.

I discussed something along these lines with Michael when I was in New York, though in a slightly different way. We were talking about how college life has an oddly temporary feel to it. And it does. But more specifically we were discussing the temporary and circumstantial nature of college friendship.

I’ve known since I started college that my friends in this place aren’t like my friends from home. And time has only proved me more right about that assumption. I know that when I graduate and move out of my apartment, there are a significant number of people I will likely never see or speak to again. This is just a fact of life, but not a happy one.

I have thought of Champaign as my home for some time now, but I realize even that was temporary, and I’m getting to a point in my life where a fixed home is less and less likely.

When I got back to Champaign, my mini-freakout of the drive was mostly over. And it was then that I finally understood something, that the concept of home has nothing to do with geography, or length of stay, or permanence.

It is a feeling, to be home, and nothing more than a feeling. And that feeling need not be limited.

I felt at home when I stayed in Ohio, I feel at home every time I go up to Bloomington and stay at Illinois Wesleyan. And I realized that I’m not upset because I’m moving away from Champaign. That come next fall, I won’t be going to Murphy’s, or sitting in BIF, or reading the DI (and pissing all over it). I’m sad not to lose this place, but that when I leave, there will be one less place to call home, and that feeling of being at home will need to be built up all over again.

But that feeling isn’t always hard to find.

Over winter break, I went on a two day trip to Rock Island for New Year’s with my four closest friends. And I felt at home, because I was with people I love. And I think that’s really all there is to it.

I’ll finish the final installment of WarriorPoet Gone Wild later this week, but I needed urgently to say something about the state of Iowa.

And it’s not very often that I start a thought with those words.

First, my father works for the judicial branch, and I’m going to law school in the fall, so it’s with no small amount of pride that I point out MY BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT IS THE BEST.

From the opinion in Iowa causing the stir (and seriously, you’re probably reading this during class, so read the whole thing here:

…Like all Iowans, they prize their liberties and live within the borders of this state with the expectation that their rights will be maintained and protected—a belief embraced by our state motto…

…The state motto of Iowa is: “Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain.”

…A statute inconsistent with the Iowa Constitution must be declared void, even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion.

…The framers of the Iowa Constitution knew, as did the drafters of the United States Constitution, that “times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,” and as our constitution “endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom” and equality.

…As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes poignantly said, “It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.”

The County presented a set of arguments why preventing same sex marriage was important for the state, three related to child rearing, one that granting marriage rights to same sex couples would threaten the security of opposite sex couples, which the opinion responds to as follows:

…we must evaluate whether excluding gay and lesbian people from civil marriage encourages stability in opposite- sex relationships. The County offers no reasons that it does, and we can find none.

And the fifth argument was that granting gays the right to marry would be a drain on state resources – the “too cheap for freedom,” argument.

To some in my generation, the fact that there aren’t more court cases affirming equal protection is absurd. The misconception that most people have is that the Law is about deciding what’s “Fair” when in fact, it’s just about deciding what’s “Legal,” and the two aren’t synonymous.

Which is why the legal battles like this are what drive the argument forward. Our judicial system is designed for inertia, not change. So when decisions like this happen, it starts to really add the momentum.

As a societal question, gay marriage frustrates me. When it comes to most of the Red/Blue America wedge issues, I can legitimately see both sides of the argument. We tend to fight about issues because they are gray areas, there are two sides with merit.

Gay marriage isn’t like that. It’s a total black and white question.

I believe that gay marriage must be legalized in order to satisfy equal protection of the law.

And I’m pretty sure that I’m in the right on this one, because I have all the evidence to prove it.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Well, either they are or they aren’t.

Those are the first words our country ever really said, when you think about it. If America was a baby, the assertion of equality would’ve been our equivalent of “Ma-ma.”

All men are created equal. Yes or no.

It is that simple.

I’ve written quite a bit about gay rights in the past, and I feel like I’ve made all the arguments I can. I wanted to write about this decision as a sort of celebration of this newest step towards practicing the principle of equality that this country was founded on, a principle that generation after generation of Americans have sacrificed, bled, and died for. As far as I’m concerned, it is a settled question, and everything worth saying, has been said, and needs only to be affirmed by our classrooms and courtrooms.

Here’s what Zim-Man had to say about this little victory of freedom:

“When The Ship Comes In”

Oh the time will come up when the windswill stop
and the breeze will cease to be breathin’
like the stillness in the wind before the hurricane begins
the hour that the ship comes in

And the sea will split and the ships will hit
And the sands on the shoreline will be shakin’
And the tide will sound and the waves will pound
And the morning will be breakin’

Oh, the fishes will laugh as they swim out of the path
And the seagulls they’ll be smilin’
And the rocks on the sand will proudly stand
The hour that the ship comes in

And the words that are used for to get the ship confused
Will not be understood as they’re spoken
For the chains of the sea will have busted in the night
And be buried at the bottom of the ocean

A song will lift as the main sail shifts
And the boat drifts onto the shoreline
And the sun will respect every face on the deck
The hour that the ship comes in

And the sands will roll out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be touchin’
And the ship’s wise men will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’

Oh, the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes
And they’ll jerk from their beds and think they’re dreamin
But they’ll pinch themselves and squeal and they’ll know that it’s for real
The hour that the ships come in

And they’ll raise their hand sayin’ “We’ll meet all your demands,”
But we’ll shout from the bow, “YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED!”

And like Pharaoh’s tribe, they’ll be drownded in the tide,
And like Goliath, they’ll be conquered.”

-Bob Dylan

The South, Not That Different After All

After I left the Man Cave, the next stop was Greensboro, North Carolina and my dear friend, Alex. Along the way I passed through, well… virtually nothing. There isn’t much in between the bustling metropolis of Bowling Green, Ohio and western North Carolina. I did go through West Virginia, home to a level of poverty that’s hard to find in the Midwest – and I thought, “This, too, is America.”

I also drove through some hills and mountains, in fact, literally through them in Virginia. And being from flat, northern Illinois, and even flatter Champaign, changes in elevation in and of themselves- are cool.

When I was planning the trip, I was really excited about the Greensboro leg of my trip, because I’d never really been in the South (with a capital “S”).

This was a major source of disappointment to me.

The South just wasn’t as different as I expected it to be. I mean, I wasn’t looking for Sling Blade. But more like The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. My experience in Greensboro was that apart from the accent, it’s just not that different. Greensboro is even a similar style college town as Champaign.

I mean, there were a few things: Brunswick stew made with squirrel, and something – which sounds absolutely awesome to me- called a “pig pickin.’”

But that stuff doesn’t really make us different, it just means we come from different places. And hell, if the opportunity arises, I wouldn’t say No to some squirrel meat.

Partially because I was there from a Sunday to a Wednesday, my time in NC was jam-packed with theater. I saw a student workshop, a professional show, rehearsal, a theater honor fraternity meeting, and at every meal I heard a little more about the theater department.

I really enjoyed the people I met there, and I had a wonderful time. But the jump from March Madness in the Man Cave to the theater department gossip mill was a pretty significant change.

I suppose people shrink their worlds to make life somehow more manageable, and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. Life is a complicated affair, and if there’s only one thing in your life that you’re really passionate about, it makes sense to narrow your life.

But I’ve always tried to make my horizons as broad as I can. I like to think that I have diverse pursuits and interests, and that this makes it harder to pigeonhole me as one thing or another, that there’s no tagline for me.

After a few days of classes, and theater, and actors, and stage managers (my favorite), and more theater talk, and I needed to talk about something else.

It was time to head North.

Interlude – Driving to New York City, or The Cop in Virginia

On my way from the Boro to the Big Apple, I got stopped by a cop in Virginia. I had been told before by different people that Virginia cops are particularly douchey.

Yep.

The officer explained that the reason he pulled me over was because the plastic border around my rear license plate was covering the word “Illinois” (in our state’s feminine cursive). Apparently, the state needs to be clearly displayed in Virginia.

He ran my license and registration, lent me a screwdriver to get the border off my plate, and then gave me the Young American Shakedown.

It’s a pretty simple script and awfully familiar to me.

Cop : Is there anything in the car I need to know about.

What I Actually Said: No

What I said in my head: A copy of the fourth amendment.

Cop: Any drugs?

What I Actually Said: No

What I said in my head: All that’s left is this rolled up twenty.

Apparently I answered the drug question a little too fast for him. My blanket, “No” did not suffice, so he started listing every drug he could think of:

Cocaine, Heroin, Marijuana, Methamphetamines, Meds, Rolls, Nugs… (he didn’t say that last part).

And every time I replied, No.

So at the end of this little interview, he asked, jokingly: “Dead bodies?”

And I finally figured out why I hate cops. They’re usually not funny, but you’re not allowed to be funny with them.

He was joking when asked if there were any dead bodies in the car, but had I replied:

“Oh shit, I knew I left something in the hotel.”

I’d be in a jail in Virginia right now.

The cop let me drive away, and I was on the road to New York City.

On my spring break road trip I finished reading White Fang. I don’t know why I was never assigned this particular American classic, but here I am at 20, righting the oversight.

London uses a particularly interesting turn of phrase in articulating the nature/nurture dynamic, referring to the natural instincts of a creature as “clay” and behavior modified by “the thumb of experience.”

It struck me on my three-stop tour of Eastern Standard Time that this was the perfect way to explain why my circle of friends from high school has remained together through three years of college, we’re all the same kind of clay.

To quote OAR (something I usually try to avoid) : “When I’m with my friends, I feel home.”

Over the next few days, I’ll be recounting my 2,400 mile, ten-day trip.

BGSU, or Three Days in the Man Cave

From the end of the Bulls second three-peat to my junior year of high school, I don’t think I watched a single game of any sport in its entirety. But when I became friends with Mitch Hirsh that changed. Mitch runs an NCAA bracket pool every march and he got me into it that first year by hustling me.

“Anyone’s got a shot, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know shit about college basketball.”

Yeah, sure. Here’s my five bucks.

But as soon as I had money on it (and discovered Mitch was only halfway lying), I found I could watch any amount of college basketball. It was as though my long years of abstention from all things athletic had created in me an unfathomable hunger for full court presses and buzzer beaters.

So when I began planning my sprig break road trip, I was ecstatic to discover that my first night in Bowling Green was also the first day of March Madness.

Mitch lives in what I often describe as an R-rated Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. His house, the house next door, and a house at the end of the block are the components, and each time I’ve gone to visit, it has been a bunch of guys with beer and sporting equipment.

Within a few hours of my arrival we had reorganized Mitch’s basement for maximum madness. Next to the TV we put laptops, streaming video of the additional games online. This way, we were able to watch four games concurrently. The seating was stadium style with a front row of chairs and a second row behind the somewhat poorly constructed basement bar.

After a few hours the games ended and we, as men, were sated.

The second day we had a brilliant notion.

We bought a keg.

The business major in me immediately identified the virtues of this plan. It had both economies of scale and efficiencies of production.

1) We saved on cost per unit given the amount we intended to consume.
2) We would not need to leave to acquire more.
3) While cans or bottles would be kept a whole flight of stairs away, the keg of Honey Brown could be stored at a reasonable temperature Right Next To Us.

This was Man-Logic at its finest. And for two days we watched every game, updating our brackets, drinking, and laughing in what one of my fellows called, “The Man Cave.”

I am hardly considered to fit American society’s notions of “manly.” But three days in the Man Cave brought something uncommon out of me: A great deal of shouting, a good deal of fart jokes, and an eerie similarity to the Tim Allen Tool Time laugh.

These are the words I have borrowed or invented to describe my time at Bowling Green State University:

Dudetastic.
Testosteronical.
And Manstrosity.

Three days of this, and a long time with the BG boys.

Mitch is the coolest of our friends. He will always be cooler than the rest of us. Two of us are power-dorks, two are theater kids, and Woody is just plain crazy.

What I always find interesting, and even more so on this particular trip, is that none of my friends from home have friends at school that are like our friends. Mitch is no exception. Mitch’s friends at school are actually more like Mitch than we are.

And by that I mean that they are honest folks. I sat and joked with them around a bonfire on the last night of the first leg of my trip, and I was struck by the idea that I don’t act in front of them. I don’t put on any of the masks I might wear in other situations, because I know that they are “Come as you are” type people.

I know that some people get the fun-in-the-sun Cabo St. Lauderdale Beach type of spring break, and I’m sure that six days of tequila is fun. But for my money, I’d rather just sit around with people who I can laugh with, and drink beer, and watch basketball, and feel at home.

Tomorrow (March 12th) marks the Warrior Poet’s 1st Birthday. An enormous thank you to Elle Destree, and my readers.

I’ve been an amateur at a lot of things over the last few years. Actor, Director, Journalist, and most important to me – Writer.

Every now and then, though, I have these moments when I realize that I’m a second-rate writer, and lack the determination to change that.

Aye me, to be pretty good.

I’ve been thinking a lot about amateurism lately. And I use the word “amateur” not as a derogative.

Two weeks ago I went to the weekly Open Mic night at the Red Herring (Every Sunday 7:30- 10:30, hosted by Stan McConnell) and read a couple of my poems. I hadn’t read like that since freshman year.

Sorry, had to pimp.

I’ve been thinking about amateurism a lot lately because the hope is that soon I’ll be going to law school. But this whole year for me has been all about the slow and inevitable climb towards adulthood, and it seems to me that a part of that is leaving behind my amateur pursuits. I haven’t been onstage in almost a year, and I’ve been an amateur actor since I was 8. I haven’t sang onstage since my high school graduation, but I spent five years in choir before that, plus my short lived garage band in high school. These childish things are being put away.

But not the writing. That I’m going to keep.

The act of creation is important to me (you know what I’m sayin’?) and I’ve recently been looking through past creations. I save a whole lot of my writing, and the older I get, the happier I am to still have some of it. Writing is great as an amateur creation, because there’s a neat record of it.

A play, or dance, or singing, is different, it’s somehow lost with time (even when it’s recorded). But when I look at my old writing, I’m really looking at the old me that wrote it, and that’s the value of it. It’s also what keeps me in that second-rate artist category, I create things as a sort of timeline of my own life.

The timeline is important to me. I once wrote that life is a cycle of growing, stagnating, and growing again. Which is certainly true. What I’m just now getting old enough to understand is that adulthood is not the end of this process.

I haven’t posted anything this introspective or personal here at the warrior poet in a long time, because I don’t expect readers to really want to hear what’s going on inside my own head. But ye olde 217, as I look through it, seems to be about amateur creation in many ways. In my fellow bloggers, local music, local artists… But it’s only know that I start to see these amateur creations as something important, in and of themselves.

“He worked on several paintings at once, leaving and returning to a canvas many times. He had not yet brought any of them to that level which gives the master a sense of perfection. He was not even certain whether any such level existed…He left them, turned them to the wall, covered them. He became detached, far removed from them. And when he looked at them again with fresh eyes, before giving them away…the artist felt a sense of triumph. Even if no one ever saw them again- still, he had painted them.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

Wanted: Plumber for Economic Stimulus Bill, needed to make sure the shit runs downhill.

Remember when we thought it was funny that Arnold was elected Governor of California?

Now he’s brokering huge political compromises with a divided state legislature, like, Henry Clay style compromise.

Who’d have thought that the day would come when I’d wish The Terminator was my governor? Or my Senator for that matter?

Corruption is an interesting thing in today’s era of increased transparency. The Obama Administration is taking it very seriously, and that’s good.

“I’ve appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud.”

He’s a guy named Earl Devaney, and along with the inspectors general for individual departments, it’s his job to see that the $787 billion doesn’t line a bureaucrat’s pockets.

Actually, transparency is a funny word to use right now in connection to the economy and politics. Because it seems to me that the truth is: No one has any fucking idea what’s going on.

In visiting recovery.gov, I spent a few minutes looking through the 417 page ARRA, a.k.a. The Money Pissing From The Sky Act of 2009.

Virtually every line item is followed by an extra two million or so for the inspector general’s office to audit and investigate the use of funds provided. For example:

SCIENCE
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

SCIENCE
For an additional amount for ‘‘Science’’, $400,000,000.

AERONAUTICS
For an additional amount for ‘‘Aeronautics’’, $150,000,000.

EXPLORATION
For an additional amount for ‘‘Exploration’’, $400,000,000.

CROSS AGENCY SUPPORT
For an additional amount for ‘‘Cross Agency Support’’,
$50,000,000.

OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
For an additional amount for ‘‘Office of Inspector General’’,
$2,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2013.

Now, I’m not entirely sure how NASA getting a billion is going to help the economy, but if it’s a money party and everyone’s invited, then I guess the Rocket Boys ought to get a seat at the table. And then an extra two million to make sure they’re not spending it all in one crater.

There’s been a flood of “outrage” on TV at every excess of every corporation that has received federal dollars, and perhaps rightfully so, but the government, even when honest, is the very soul of gluttony. A billion for NASA, without even blinking. After all, what’s another billion? Granted, I’m still in favor of the spending item, and I hope it’s spent well and saves and creates jobs, but for Senators and Congressmen to bitch about Auto CEOs and their private jets, and then just have something like:

“FOSSIL ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
For an additional amount for ‘‘Fossil Energy Research and
Development’’, $3,400,000,000.”

Woah! You just spent $3.4 Billion of our money in 15 words, and you want to talk about excessive?

I read a few opinion pieces today from the national newspapers, and a recurring theme was how the American mindset is being affected by our economic collapse. But if you can’t laugh at- For an additional amount for “Science” -while picturing a NASA official making air-quote marks, then you aren’t going to get through the next two years.

My father recently received a report about how much his retirement plan has lost in the last quarter. The number was so big it made my mother cry, and my father laugh. One of them has the right attitude.

I know I’m a business major, and everybody else is only talking about money these days too, but the more interesting thing in this crisis to me is the value of the human spirit, and if it really exists, the American spirit in particular.

I mention the importance of humor for us viewing these events, because it won’t be long until we hear stories about corruption related to ARRA. There will be a slew of stories over the next two years about corruption in spending the stimulus cash, and people will, understandably, be outraged by it.

I can see the stories now:

“Allegations have surfaced than in the $67 million dollar construction project for a new energy efficient waste management facility in Gainesville was awarded to the bidder because of a bribe. The project was funded by the recent Economic Stimulus bill, and local taxpayers are understandably outraged. Back to you, Mike.”

Corruption happens. We should count ourselves lucky when we hear about it, because that means we caught it, that’s what all the extra $2 millions are for.

I remember reading a minor story shortly after September 11, 2001. Trucks of scrap metal from the World Trade Center had been stolen, authorities blaming it on local mob activity.

And I remember thinking, “See, they can’t destroy the American way of life.”

Things are terrible, and call me stupid, but I’m not that worried. Which could be because I’m reading a book about a soviet prison, but I have the feeling that as a country, we’ll get through this just fine.

Now the money will start to run, and then the accounting starts. And then there will be more bullshit that distracts us. But I for one am not taking seriously the crocodile tears of our elected officials when they talk about the struggles of real American families, or their moaning about corporate excess. I have yet to see real leadership out of the legislative branch, and so I don’t care about their sound bites. Fear mongering irritates me, and lately there’s a lot of it going around, and too much of it is coming from Washington in my eyes.

I was watching Deadwood recently (as I am wont to do). The show, among other things, is a good reminder that pimps & whores helped to build this country. Crime and corruption are somehow natural to American development, and a rising crime rate is coming our way soon.

In one particular scene, an evil and murderous man references the corruption of a local, appointed government agent:

“I am a sinner who does not expect forgiveness. But I am not a government official.”

Conspecific. It’s not a common word. It means “belonging to the same species.” I learned it taking Social Psych. It came up in the explanation of an experiment where cockroaches ran through a maze, and other cockroaches watched them from behind clear plastic. The experiment showed that the mere presence of conspecific viewers (members of our own species) alters our behavior. It’s a strange experiment to picture: a single cockroach skittering through a plexi-glass maze and little clear plastic boxes of “stands” full of other cockroaches bumping into the walls. I was fascinated by the experiment, and the word.

Microsoft Word doesn’t even recognize the word “conspecific,” which is sort of sad.

A year ago Saturday, Steven Kazmierczak walked into Cole Hall with a shotgun and three handguns. He shot 23 students in the oceanography lecture, five of whom died, another one was in choir with me in high school. Then he turned the gun on himself.

Steven was a sociology student, so I feel pretty sure he knew the word “conspecific.”

It isn’t practical to fear chaos. If we were afraid of chaos, or insanity, then we’d live our whole lives in fear.

I was part of a peace rally in my hometown about five years ago. There was a counter-protestor there. Everyone was carrying these cards with the names of soldiers who had died in Iraq. I wish I could remember the name I was carrying. This crazy guy was there with a sign that said something about killing terrorists. I watched as he shouted at other participants and waved his hand-made poster board frantically. And then some kid, someone I didn’t recognize, maybe about 16, stood right in front of this guy and just held up the name card he was carrying. Others joined him and covered him up. I remember thinking that was really beautiful.

After the shootings, I found out that the Westboro Baptist Church was planning to protest at the victim’s funerals. The WBC shows up at funerals and waves signs about how God makes terrible things happen to Americans because we tolerate homosexuals.

There was a Facebook group organized to facilitate counter protests. I was sort of amazed by my generation that something as bloodless as Facebook could be used for something like that. I joined the group and I wrote:

The Westboro Baptist Church (“Reverend” Fred Phelps and family) have announced plans to protest the funerals of NIU victims. They believe that God makes terrible things happen in this country because we tolerate homosexuality.

I happen to know a lot about the “christians” of WBC, and this is my advice to all of you, as an outsider, unable to do anything for geographical reasons.

Go to the funeral. Go to the protest, and stand in front of them with banners that say “GOD IS LOVE.” Cover them completely. Tarps, Bed sheets, blankets, signs, posters. Pictures of those who lost their lives, anything that covers the WBC.

Go and block them, go and cover them. Don’t fight them, but provide a message of love and support for the families who are mourning. Don’t let them use misery as an opportunity. Don’t call and yell, don’t read their website and get angry. Get out there and show people there is a better message to be had, that you aren’t fazed by their hatred. Don’t let them have any power. Don’t let them have any power over you. Go out there and block them from being heard.

If you are planning on going to services, please do something about this. Go and cover them, go and block them.

One of my friends from high school was shot and is still in critical condition. Her boyfriend was not so lucky. If I could be there I would, I ask all of you to go to the service, to remember those who died. And to go to these protests, to promote a message of love and understanding. To not allow these people to advance their agenda or to publicize themselves on the backs of corpses. Please stop them. Please.

You are stronger than them because they are so deeply, deeply wrong. Do not let them argue with you. If you are attending the services, go to the protest and cover them, block them, do not let them be heard or seen. Show instead a message of love, and that will be powerful. That is the way to honor those who have lost their lives.

The rev. Fred Phelps and his family of WBC protested the funeral of Matthew Shepard once upon a time, and a counter protest group arrived in angel costumes and surrounded Phelp’s protest, blocking him from cameras. I’ll say it again.

Do not let their message be heard. Have the photo opportunity for journalists not a bunch of crazies, but a bunch of students with a better message, a more effective message, a true message. Do not allow their propaganda of hate a single headline, a single cover story. There are many embarrassments to humanity, the WBC included. But there is always hope so long as we can do something beautiful, something worthwhile. IF we can heal, and spread a message that heals. They are powerless if they are not heard, make it so and you have the power.

I don’t know much about what happened at the funerals. I should’ve gone, and I didn’t.

A few months later, I got a message from one of the victim’s aunts saying thanks. It meant a lot to me.

I looked at the group on Facebook today and read some of the old posts. There was so much anger in them, at Fred Phelps, at the shooter.

It’s so terrible to me that any one human being looks another without knowing:
“This is one of mine. One of my own.”

On the other hand, chaos is real. Someone could walk into class and start shooting, any day, anywhere in America. Fearing it doesn’t make any sense, but to not respond to it seems equally insane.

I wanted to do something to memorialize the victims, but the truth is that the only way I see to honor the victims of an act of chaos is to realize that we could all die tomorrow and so we ought to live right. Be good to one another all the time, for no other reason than we are all human.

The cockroaches know their own kind.

I’m a human being.

If you want to see something fancy tonight, check out February Dance: White Out at the Krannert Center.

For a guy who’s seen Reservoir Dogs about thirty times, I really enjoy contemporary dance.

My sister is a dancer, and so I grew up with some amount of respect and appreciation for it, and that has only grown over time.

There’s a pre-show called “The Silent Show” from 6:15-7:15 (for free, if you can’t afford a ticket). The concept is that all the pieces are silent and in someway inspired by silence. I’ve seen enough modern dance work that I know dance isn’t always a cerebral activity. Sometimes you can watch a dance and chew over the meaning, the images, the movements. And sometimes you’re watching a guy in a Buddy Holly suit do T’ai Chi. (Philip Johnston’s Mandarin in the Silent Show). It wouldn’t be reasonable to watch it and think too deeply on what it means. It’s just something you experience.

The first piece, Pass The Goddam Butter, started a little slow in my eyes, but it includes a second half with ten dancers around a dinner table, adding percussion to the music from the place settings. The White Out theme (as we’re explained to at the start) is supposed to be an interesting image because it is both one of absence and abundance. Pass The Goddam Butter was the only piece where I saw the image being played out. The dancers are costumed in Red, White, and Blue, and there are some definite implications in the piece about American life and perhaps the American family.

The second, Trigger, is sort of a meta-piece about dance itself. Those things can get pretty silly in my eyes, but I really enjoyed this one. I’m biased though, the choreographer does a voice over through the piece about the nature of dance and choreography, and since my sister does both, I ate it up.

I didn’t like Paper Song, but that’s the thing about dance shows, sometimes a piece just doesn’t resonate with an individual.

And the final piece, Getting There, was just downright funny. That’s the one edge that contemporary styles will always have over every other genre of dance. It’s never appropriate to laugh during a ballet, but when one of the dancers is cradling a giant strawberry, that’s funny.

Modern dance isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Part of the problem is that watching movement can stimulate the viewer, but then be difficult to put into words. That’s generally the problem with movement, we try so hard to put what we think about it in words, and words are ill-equipped for the task.

As a bit of a writer, I often forget that in the family of communication, the spoken word is the youngest child. The spoiled baby with all the attention, actually. Music is older, and movement is very likely the eldest child.

That’s what makes contemporary dance impressive. Hundreds of thousands of years that human beings have been using movement to communicate, and there are still dancers and choreographers trying to figure out what else movement can do. They still haven’t hit the boundaries, and that seems sort of beautiful to me.