Dave Forges On, Despite the Futility of It All

Yesterday, I was doing my Basic Shakespeare Intro for my senior College Writing class, and I taught one of my students in this class, Gavin, two years ago when he was a sophomore—in Honors English—and Gavin vaguely remembered this lesson—back then we did 12th Night, and now we are starting Hamlet but it doesn't matter; the basics are the same: Shakespeare was born in England (not, as some students told me, Russia or France or Vienna or Italy . . . Italy I get, because they read Romeo and Juliet—but Russia?) and Shakespeare often wrote in iambic pentameter, and he coined many words and phrases (eyeball, unreal, knock knock who's there, etc) and then we talk about WHY we still read Shakespeare today, in modern times, and my three reasons, in order, are:

1. His CHARACTERS—no one in the history of literature created as many compelling, psychologically unique, and fascinating characters, bar none—he is the champ;

2. His way with LANGUAGE—a close second, between Shakespeare and William Tyndale, those two created a large portion of the words and phrases we use today, plus Shakespeare was often writing poetically;

3. EMOTION—Shakespeare plays are wild and dramatic; they don't teach us any lessons, or that's not the main point; they are entertainment, and the people populating these plays really put it on the line—so the plays are fun to read, act, and view;

I have the students come up with reasons why we still read Shakespeare first, before I tell them the actual reasons, and many of them say, "He came up with a lot of interesting plots and stories," and I break the news to them that Shakespeare stole most of his plots from various sources: poems, myths, history books, old tales, novels, and other plays from the repertoire—there were no copyright laws back then, and artists "borrowed" with impunity . . .

so we went through this lesson with various slides and activities, and then the students tok a quiz on the material, and then we had a few minutes left in class, so we took a walk, and on our walk we ran into another student from the sophomore Honors English class from two years ago, a great student (Humza) who was now taking AP English-- and Gavin said to Humza, "Quick, name the three reasons we read Shakespeare," and Humza wracked his brain for a second and said, "He invented a lot of famous words and phrases," and Gavin said, "Ok, that's the easy one, why else?" and Humza said, "He came up with a lot of cool plots?" and Gavin said, "He stole his plots," and Humza, with all sincerity and seriousness, threw his hands into the air, shocked, and said, "He stole his plots?!" and I said, "Why? Why do I teach you people anything!?"

Is This Going to Be a Thing Now?

I don't know if this is a thing that happens when you get older (and produce less skin grease) but my ankles are really itchy and the skin down there is all dry—so for the first time in my life (heeding my wife's advice) I put on some moisturizer cream . . . and it seems to have helped.

Elephants, Acid, and Exploring the Inmost Cave

 

I just finished Act Two of my newest Pig on the Wall series (A Long, Long Road: The Secrets of Tom Petty's Sustained Success) . . . if you don't have the time or energy to listen to the whole thing, there is a musical quiz in the first few minutes, and at the 23-minute mark there's something else I made that I'm quite proud of, which turns into another oddball, one-question quiz—check it out and see if you get the answer.

Birds on the Brain

Last night (or actually 2:30 AM this morning) while I was in the depths of slumber, my wife yelled, "No! No! Don't let the turkey in the house!" which startled me from the depths of slumber—or momentarily startled me, then I started laughing—and while I normally don't recount dreams on this blog because dreams are stupid-- this one affected my actual physical existence, so I will attempt to sort out what happened here, psychologically, the concatenation of factors which created this dire and frightening avian scenario in my wife's subconscious mind:

1) my wife is afraid of birds;

2) we recently watched an episode of The West Wing in which Press Secretary C.J. Cregg finds two turkeys in her office—named Eric and Troy—and she has to determine which one is more photogenic and therefore will receive a presidential pardon from execution and consequent basting and roasting

3) fall weather has moved in, and Thanksgiving is approaching;

4) the weirdo across the street has several chickens and a rooster, and the rooster crows several times every morning.

Major Monday

I reffed six soccer matches this weekend-- and the Hyaluronic acid gel injections obviously haven't blended with my existing joint fluid because when I woke up this morning, my knee fucking hurt-- but I managed to finish my newest episode of Pig on the Wall (aside from the mix down) before school and then I rushed to the 7 AM Faculty Meeting (beats going 3 PM) which lasted a VERY long time, then I taught all day, but conserved my energy, because I knew when I got home from school, I was going to have to summon all my culinary skills and acumen . . . because I promised my wife-- in celebration of the fall weather-- that I'd make crockpot chili and crockpot chili needs some time in the crockpot, so right when I arrived home from school, I put on a pot of coffee and some Aphex Twin on the kitchen speaker and got to it-- caramelizing the onions, browning the meat, roasting the peppers, filling the crockpot with fire roasted tomatoes from my wife's garden, using the immersion blender to chop these tomatoes into slightly smaller pieces (very messy) and adding all the spices (I had to grind some black pepper with the mortar and pestle because we are out) and rinsing the beans and then doing all the dishes (aside from the ones I am soaking) and now I am done and the chili is simmering away in the crockpot, and I need to switch the Aphex Twin to something more mellow because it is stressing me out while I write this sentence.

Existential Moments Before an Offsides Violation

If people want to pay me cash for jogging around, blowing a whistle, and waving a flag, while the children kick a ball, so be it—this is the world we have chosen, this is the world we have designed, and all I can do is adapt and capitalize and enjoy it . . . these are the kinds of thoughts I have while taking my turn at AR, for our crew's third game, on a rainy Saturday, when the ball is out of bounds on the far side of a huge, wet grass field and won't be near me any time in the near future.

STONE CAGE BACKYARD DEATH MATCH!!!

 

In this corner of the backyard, we have—show me the money (wort)!!! . . . CREEPING JENNY! and in the same corner of the backyard, we have a not-so-cute little periwinkle called CREEPING MYRTLE! and these two shade-loving wrestlers are going to battle to cover the ground in a stone cage match, fenced in by medium-sized rocks (pilfered from the park) and may the hardiest, fastest-growing evergreen win . . . the internet predicts that Creeping Myrtle will CHOKE OUT Creeping Jenny, so that's worth the price of admission alone—although I must warn you that this match might take several years to resolve (maybe I'll do some stop-motion time-lapse photography to document the battle . . . although, probably not).

My Knee is a Blender?

Over the last three weeks, I've received three hyaluronic acid shots in my knee, and now all I have to do is sit back and let the gel blend with my existing joint fluid, which will dilute the inflammatory enzymes that break down cartilage . . . or so I hope-- I will say that I played pickleball yesterday and biked home, and my knee feels pretty good today, so perhaps the gel is blending.

Yet Another Racket (from the people that sell rackets)

I finally used the Dick's Gift Card I received from my mom some Christmas Past—I realized I could use it ONLINE and not have to actually visit Dick's Sporting Goods (which is located right on Route 18 in East Brunswick, and Route 18 in East Brunswick has now been under construction for the last three years and eight months . . . I shit you not) and so I bought a basketball (Alex stole mine and took it to Manhattan) and a pair of tennis shoes that were on sale . . . yesterday, the basketball arrived on my front porch, but I also got an email informing me that the sale-priced tennis shoes were out of stock, and so the order was canceled . . . so I went back to Dick's online store and tried to buy some other tennis shoes, thinking there would be some money in my account—but there was not—so I called the information number and told them what happened, and the very nice Midwestern lady told me that the money was credited back to the gift card, and I told her that I threw the gift card into the trash because IT HAD NO MONEY ON IT—I spent the money on the sale-priced tennis shoes . . . so now Dick's is snail-mailing me a new gift card with the balance on it—they can't just credit my account because (God only knows why) they have to refund the money in the same form they received it, which is a made-up fucking rule—money is fungible-- and I am sure most people don't bother to call the number and sort this out and so the money gets sent to a Dick's Gift Card sitting inside a soiled diaper in a garbage dump and then the missing money eventually boomerangs right back into Dick's gigantic bank account . . . and, to add insult to injury, the new gift card will take will take at least fourteen business days to be issued and then mailed because: fuck you.

Good Thing the Painting Behind Us Wasn't Saturn Devouring His Son

This twenty-five-year-old photo of my buddies and me in some funky bar/pool hall in Amsterdam makes more sense if you look closely at the painting behind us (but not THAT much more sense).

 

Dave Comes Up with Some "A" Material ("A" Stands for Antenna)

Yesterday, I remembered that when I touch the metal prong of my 1/8-inch mini jack that I plug into my laptop to connect to my Edifier desktop speakers, I get a pleasing static hum—this is called the "antenna effect," and it is the result of invisible 50 Hz or 60 Hz electrical noise radiating from the surrounding lights and power cords—and so I said to the students (and I can't believe I hadn't thought of this joke earlier in my career) that when I plug the mini-jack into my ear, you can hear my thoughts through the speakers . . . you can actually hear what's going on in my brain-- and then I placed the mini-jack into my ear but I also simulataneously touched the metal prong, and the students heard the pleasing static hum, and I said, "Yup . . . that's what's going on in there," and they laughed.

The Art of Reffing in the Rain

I learned a few things while reffing three soccer matches in yesterday's nor'easter:

1) I need to get a vented, transparent ref poncho, like the other ref had—even though I changed my undershirt, I was soaked through and through;

2) I need to pack some large plastic garbage bags—the other ref, who was very well prepared, lent me one of his, so I had somewhere to put my ref bag and keep it relatively dry;

3) I need to get some sort of eyewear-specific hydrophobic spray—such as SOFT99RainHopper—because by the third game, I was soaked to the skin, and there were so many beads of water on my eyeglasses that I couldn't accurately call the lines . . . luckily, the game was a blowout, and it was raining so hard that no one else could really see much either . . . but, hypothetically, if someone heckled me from the crowd, if someone yelled, "Are you blind, ref?" I would have answered, "Yes, indeed, you are correct, I AM blind."

Through Surf and Storm and Howling Gale, to Call Offsides and Such

I (barely) survived yesterday's viewing of Resident Evil at the Rutgers Cinema—when I wasn't laughing hysterically, which was fairly often, I was either curled into the fetal position, clutching my wife's hand, or jumping out of my pants . . . then after the movie, we decided to go to the nearest liquor store and buy some beer, and we took a cut-through road (School Street) that wound its way through one of the strangest neighborhoods we've ever seen in New Jersey—every house was a completely different architectural style; many looked like they had endured home improvement projects built by very unskilled laborers, but there were also occasional McMansions dotted among Cape Cods, colonials, weird little beach house-style ranches, and houses with stucco walls—and now I am headed to ref in the storm, but I know it won't be as bad as the weather in Resident Evil, nor will there be zombies that send out fleshy tendrils, mate with each other despite decapitation, and form a huge aggressive ball of agglomerated bodies with many legs and arms.

You Fritter and Waste the Hours in an Offhand Way

According to the news, we are being battered by a powerful nor'easter this weekend, but so far the only trouble this storm has caused me is some difficulty trying to properly spell and punctuate the word "nor'easter"—the soccer matches I was supposed to referee have been canceled . . . which is mildly annoying because there hasn't been all that much rain and wind, but—for no good reason I can discern—doing fuck-all on this rainy day feels slightly different than if I was NOT supposed to work; it's like I gained some time (but lost some money) and I COULD have appropriately used this time to finally read Proust's In Search of Lost Time or to continue the dense and completely incomprehensible Being and Time, by the foundational philosopher Martin Heidegger—and then perhaps I would understand why time off from work because work is canceled due to inclement weather feels different than time when you were not supposed to work in the first place, but instead I took a nap, and now we are heading to the movies to see Resident Evil (though I never played the video game, but the internet says I will be fine as long as I understand that there is an evil corporation: The Umbrella Corporation, a dangerous virus, and a place called Raccoon City, which is NOT full of raccoons, it is full of zombies . . . I'm sure the plot will go down easier than digesting Heidegger).

A Very Diplomatic Move That I'm Going to Use Someday

Yesterday, five of us walked over to Steakhouse 85 for pub night—but there were only four seats around the corner of the bar, so Alec asked the slightly older-than-us gentleman sitting alone eating his oysters and salad if he wouldn't mind moving over one stool so we could sit together, and the slightly older-than-us gentleman graciously agreed to move over, and then Alec pushed the matter and said, "And then in a minute or so, we'll all be great friends," and the gentleman took a look at us and said, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Ghost of Jersey Past, Food Edition

Tom Perrotta's haunting novel about one strange summer in  the suburbs of New Jersey, Ghost Town, is set in 1974—before the entirety of New Jersey was home to an incredibly diverse population and an incredibly vibrant, inexpensive, and unparalleled selection of ethnic food from around the globe; there are hints of this future gustatory paradise in the novel: Jimmy, Wayne, Nilda, Hector, and Yvette visit a fictional Chinese restaurant called the Jade Palace, and Jimmy has wontons, hot mustard, egg rolls, and Asian noodles for the first time . . . this reminds me of our go-to Asian spot in the early 1980s, A-Kitchen, an authentic Hunan and Cantonese place that started in a gas station in Monmouth Junction and then moved to a traditional, rather rambling building on Route 27 in Franklin—we learned about the restaurant from the Asian kid on my travel soccer team, Kenny Cho, whose family either owned or managed the place—and we went all the time when I was young, and I would try to order "shrimp ding" as spicy as they could make it, and my father would wink at the waitress, th wink telling her NOT to make it that spicy-- as I was just a child, and a Caucasian hild at that-- and I would see him wink and tell the waitress to ignore his wink and make it spicy . . . typical family dinner drama-- but this place A-Kitchen was the real deal, the New York Times even wrote an article about it . . . and now some slightly more practical food nostalgia, if you live in Central Jersey-- becasue A-Kitchen is long gone, but Gambino's, the classic Italian place in New Brunswick, on Remsen Avenue, where my dad and his buddies would hang out is now a fantastic new restaurant-- with a liquor license-- called Tequila House . . . the mixed drinks are amazing, the decor is festive, the bottled beer is cheap, and the birria tacos contain ACTUAL steak-- when I ordered them the Hispanic server (we were the only gringos in the place) gave me a subtle nod, like Oh yeah amigo, you know what to order and my wife got the enchilads verde and they were also top notch-- so while the neighborhood has changed and La Cort Bakery and Gambino's are no more, there's some great Hispanic food replacing the Italian spots, which is exactly how Jersey operates.

Ghost of Jersey Past

Tom Perrotta's new novel Ghost Town is evocative, haunting, and nostalgic—each concise chapter is a set piece on grief and adolescence . . . and Ouija boards—and the story is especially moving if you grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey . . . while the book is set ever so slightly before my time, the narrator is thirteen in 1974, and I was only four years old then, so I don't quite remember the early 1970s— the songs on the radio are "Kung Fu Fighting," and "Rock the Boat," and "When Will I see You Again"-- which I vaguely remember, but I certainly can't name the bands that played these hits; I also appreciate that this is a different version of New Jersey than when I came of age; the fictional town of Creamwood seems to be inspired by Perrotta's Union County hometown, Garwood, a factory town full of Cape Cods and split-levels, and—in the early 1970s, the town was segregated in a de facto fashion . . . while my middle school experience in Central Jersey was at the start of the incredible diversity that Jersey is now known for-- there were mainly Italians, Irish, Hungarians, and Jews in my town-- which we considered "white" people-- but there were also Indian and Asian and Black and Hispanic families in my neighborhood; not so much in Creamwood, which is pretty much all white, but the narrator, Jimmy Perrini, starts to question his town's tacit racism and-- after his mother dies from cancer-- he's pretty much left on his own and starts to have some experiences with his hippie cousin and his hippie cousin's racially ambiguous wife Nilda and her Black cousin Hector-- while the plotting of the novel is pretty formulaic, it builds up to a big climax and all that, Jersey is in the details; I love the moment where Jimmy is riding around with burnout Eddie Fitzpatrick in his Chevy Vega, and Jimmy says he likes Jethro Tull, and Eddie says—which are my sentiments exactly—"I might like them a little better if he shoved that flute up his ass."

Better Not To Know?

While I was chatting at the dog park, a retired Rutgers food science teacher told me that he didn't swim in the ocean much this summer because the bacteria levels were so high-- but luckily (or unluckily?) I did not know this, and so I swam in the ocean twice a day for most of August-- it would have been a sad summer if I were worried about slurping down fecal matter every time I cooled off . . . and yesterday at the doctor's office, when I was preparing to get my second gel shot in my knee, the nurse took my blood pressure, and I asked her if it was lower than last week, and she said, "Yes, it IS lower this time," and I told her I had the day off from school (for Yom Kippur) and last week I had rushed over after being in a room full of teenagers all day . . . so now I have proof that this stupid job is bad for me (which makes me NOT want to show up).

Shinebox? Shonebox?

Even English teachers have grammatical hurdles they struggle to clear on the daily—while I don't usually bother civilians about this one (unless they are training my dog) I often correct teachers in the English Office who misuse "lie" and "lay" . . . because it's the fucking ENGLISH Office and we should get it right; I also don't mind when Denise corrects me when I incorrectly swap "fewer" and "less" . . . I've even come up with a mnemonic to help me get this one right (it's alliterative: fewer fingers, less liquid) and this morning I learned a new grammatical rule (that came up because of the Wordle answer) and so apparently "shone" and "shined" are both past tenses of "shine," but you use "shone" if there is NO direct object and you use "shined" if the verb does refer to a direct object . . . so here's an example:

"Back in the day, young Tommy Devito shined Billy Batts' shoes so well, they shone like mirrors, but then years later Billy busted his balls about it, and so Tommy beat him to death."

The Shit I Will Miss . . .

While I am REALLY looking forward to retiring, as grading, planning, and working in a hot and humid classroom chock full of teenagers . . . more teenagers than ever because of budget cuts kind of sucks, BUT I realize that I will really miss my colleagues in the English Department—as regular people also kind of suck—for example, here is the kind of shit, the kind of daily banter, I will miss—we were all sitting in the English Office, and Cunningham asked us if it was okay to give her students an article that mentions a type of masturbation called "gooning," and so we were discussing "gooning" and whether or not she should photo-copy the entire article or perhaps cut that section out, and Eric said, "I don't think you should disseminate that."