A Gentleman Never Starts Rumors

My AP History course junior year was unbearable. My teacher was insistent on testing us on every single chapter individually. This meant that we were taking a 50-100 question test every week in order to cover Columbus to Clinton in a year. This was a 3 semester "college course" crammed into a high school year. I once suggested that she break the course into units. She replied that the tests that came with the book went by chapters. The fact that she admitted to not even making the questions herself led me to just drop it.

In retrospect it was taking a 100-question multiple choice test every week that made me so good at test-taking. By the 20th test you could see how the book and test makers interacted and could basically scan the chapters and know the answers. This led to a lot of easy tests and free time after I was done taking the test. So I decided to start a rumor. I didn't want there to be any social damage done, but needed something that would spread like wildfire. The answer was staring me in the face: SCANTRON. I came up with the rumor that if you rubbed a line of Chapstick over the dashes that ran lengthwise on the page the machine would reset and grade it a perfect score. I claimed by uncle worked for Scantron Inc and that was the way that they reset the machines.

This practice did spread like wildfire. When I saw people spreading a line of Chapstick on their gym tests I started to get nervous. Perhaps I was negatively affecting my classmates grades (I don't know why they believed me). Perhaps I was doing something illegal (I don't know what). Perhaps I would get caught (I don't know what for).

This all came to a head when we had to start taking multiple choice tests on non-Scantron answer sheets. I learned later in the year that the machine was broken. I don't know if it was simply from lazy teachers abusing the machine, but I like to think there was a petroleum-based buildup that led to that machine's demise.

My Fahter's Sit-In: A Man Always Knows How To Find A Bargain

My parents, as a practice, were never very political. I can never once, even in the past election cycle, remember my parents discussing politics in front of their children. When pressed they would dodge the question, saying, "I'll probably vote for the winner." There are two things that could explain this.

1. They wanted their children to form their own political opinions
   
2. They were really as lazy as they sounded.

Neither of these would be odd if true.

My father once did take part in a sit-in though, in a furniture store. For weeks my father lusted after a blue leather La-Z-Boy brand recliner. It was a significant upgrade from the blue corduroy La-Z-Boy recliner that currently resided on the brown shag carpeting in the basement. This chair was a testaments to my father's fear of change. It was held together mainly with duct tape and a fear of having to watch the Pirates game in the living. It had survived both winter and summer "Couch Olympics" and would apparently just fall apart randomly because as my siblings and I would say "We were just sitting on it and this happened." Our cat having birthed kittens in the bowels of the chair was the final straw.

$600 is an exorbitant amount of money to a 10-year-old boy, but you must assume that you father deserves it. My mother saw it differently. Then one miraculous Saturday evening the unused half of our double front door swings open and we see my father carrying it on top of his head, head on the seat and the recliner on his back. "How much, Neil?"

$300! I went there this morning and offered $200. I was there when they opened, in fact I knocked at 10AM sharp. I strolled right up to it as if I owned it already. In my mind I think I already knew they would give it to me. '$200,' I said with disgust as if I was paying twice for it. They said, "No way," and paused, they paused Sherry, to add the "sir," to make it that much more insulting. I said, 'That's perfectly fine, I can wait a little.' And I parked my butt right in this chair and I sat. At first the sailsman didn't know what to do, he tried to go about his day, oh my yes he did. But, each time he would walk by he would would avoid my gaze with a little more.... purpose. So, it gets to be Noon, two, three, and I'm still in that chair, and now there is no way I can't get this chair, it's been 6 hours. At this point the salesman won't even come in to my part of the store, it was now my part of the store. I see him whisper to his manager one more time and he walks over to me. I figure they are going to call the cops if I don't leave. I am weighing the options of fighting for a bargain or going downtown. He comes up to me and says, "$300?" I told him it was a deal and I picked up the chair like a bag of lemons and take it to the register.

"Neil, you spent all day in a chair to get some money off a chair?" But he was already gone down to his man cave to sit on his spoils. About ten minutes later we hear him call up the stairs,
"Sherry, did you make $300 today, because I did."

Billy Buck Hill: A Gentleman Is Appreciative of History

I am almost completely done unpacking in my new apartment. The prodigal son has returned to the South Side Slopes, more specifically Billy Buck Hill? That's right, hang a left onto Yard Way and you will see a sign marked "Welcome to Billy Buck Hill." Of course an overactive imagination in a perverse 25-year-old mind begins fleshing out The Legend of Billy Buck: Epic Pittsburgh Bootlegger. I half expected to see a plaque in front of my house saying:

On this day in 1939 Billy "Buck" McGraw was gunned down by 29 Federal enforcement officers after a 23-day standoff. It took over 50 rounds to end his life.

Determined to find out who the real Billy Buck was I took advantage of the wonderful collection of local history in the Pennsylvania Room of the Carnegie Public Library, but had little success. I then ran across this 2000 Pittsburgh Post Gazette article profiling Billy Buck Hill as a quintessential Pittsburgh neighborhood.

It turns out my neighborhood is called "Billy Buck Hill" because people used to keep goats on the steep hillsides..... damn it.

My Short Teaching Career.... A Gentleman Should Have Intestinal Fortitude

I preface this post with the statement that I think "Teach for America" is a great an necessary program that I do not know it well enough to make a informed judgment. That said, here is my horrible experience with TFA.

I was reminded of my one-lecture teaching career by this article discussing the microcosm of American Primacy in the beef between Jay-Z and The Game. The article sets Jay-Z (rap mogul, record company executive, all-around player) as the hegemonic US, and The Game as the backlash against said power. It presents two options:

So what does Jay-Z do? If he hits back hard in public, the Game will gain in publicity even if he loses... the classic problem of a great power confronted by a smaller annoying challenger. And given his demonstrated skills and talent, and his track record against G-Unit, the Game may well score some points. At the least, it would bring Jay-Z down to his level -- bogging him down in an asymmetric war negating the hegemon's primary advantages. If Jay-Z tries to use his structural power to kill Game's career (block him from releasing albums or booking tour dates or appearing at the Grammy Awards), it could be seen as a wimpy and pathetic operation -- especially since it would be exposed on Twitter and the hip hop blogs.

What does this have to do with my one and only lecture? Well, such a ridiculous over-analyzed argument, given at the wrong time, to the wrong audience, basically sums up my only lecture.

While I was doing my Shakespeare seminar, I had a friend teaching EngLit in public high schools in a rough corner of Columbus Ohio. Having exchanged papers and ideas throughout the many Philosophy Coffees (here comes the nerd) at our small liberal arts college, she asked me to give a lecture basically on my observations of "Private Thoughts and Madness in Shakespeare." I had my notes prepared, a tie on, and illustrating examples from the Ghostface Killah's masterpiece FishScale. I even had examples of iambic pentameter from the album. Do you know how many times I listened to "Kilo ft. Raekwon" to find an example that fit? Unfortunately, I couldn't get to these examples. The lecture went like this:

Me: Hello class, my name is Nate, and I want to talk a little about Shakespeare and some of the different tricks he used to create private characters on the public stage. Who can tell me the difference between a soliloquy and an aside?"

Unidentified kid: Shut the fuck up, fag.

I stumbled along for a few more minutes, but it was essentially over at that point. After the lecture, I went out to lunch with my friend and she said it takes a certain fortitude to work with those kids. "They were so mean," was all I could get out in reply.

A Gentleman Always Makes Good On His Bets

I really need to start keeping track of my bets. Perhaps some sort of notebook system, organized by dates, subjects, and people? I say this because the situation of:

• Nate, Pirates are only 3 games below .500. You owe me a Pepsi Classic.
• Nate, Penguins won the cup, you have to shave your head.
• Nate, you have to detail my car, so-and-so and what's-her-name are still dating.

These are all actual conversations, text messages, or demands I have heard in the last week or so. This leads me notice two things about myself.

1. I rarely seem to bet money, rather using tasks or food items as payment
2. I have little faith in hometown sports teams and friends' dating abilities

I always think you should bet only when you know you'll win, when you won't miss what you lose, or when you secretly are happy if you do lose.

A Gentleman Is Always Resourceful

Wow, over a month since my last post. I have obviously not been very gentlemanly.

A text from last night from my sister:

So... our house got tped and dads reaction to it was: Oh look we got some free toilet paper [sic]!

Now what may you may think is: Your Dad really knows how to make light of a inconvenient situation. You would be wrong. I have no doubt that he has a pile of toilet paper in his bathroom. A gentleman is always resourceful.

This leads me to think that your house getting T-P'ed is the easiest prank that you can wipe your ass with.

A Gentleman Is Always Appreciative Of The Arts

I was the lead of my second grade play about "What I want to be when I grow up." Now, most people will cite something like this as a launching pad for a thespian career or as a moment of focused childhood anxiety, but being an extraordinarily stupid child I don't remember it being either. In fact, I don't really remember much emotion from my childhood at all, beyond embarrassment.

Even as the lead in the play I only had two lines:

• "Ahhh, Mom, can't I play Nintendo just a little longer."
• "Now I realize that I want to be an astronaut."

The play started off with an argument between my mother, played by the delightful Gwen Zadgel, in which I refused to go to bed, but did. I then fell asleep on the nurses couch that they brought into the auditorium. There was no argument about how "If I was an adult I could go to bed whenever I wanted" or "If I had a job I could be anything"... nothing. My character immediately caved. There were other plot holes as well. Now, mind you, the entire second grade was lined up on the chorus bleachers behind this once two-man show. When I fell asleep each person in the second grade would walk up to the microphone and say "My name is [name]. I want to be a [profession] because [reason]. I only remember one particularly: "My name is James Awexander, I want to be a geowogist because I want to study wocks and minewals." I remember thinking, "Kid can't even talk."

This was one of those two-hour elementary school play marathon and I must have fancied myself as something of a method actor because I remember thinking I had to lay perfectly still, because, of course, sleeping people don't move. This was exacerbated by the fact that the waiting line of children to get on the microphone walked past me and every single kid poked me, and asked "Are you really sleeping?" Looking back on it, it probably wasn't the best role, pretending to be asleep in my pajamas for two hours on stage.

The play ended with "Nate, it's time to go to school." To which I responded "I want to be an astronaut!" and ran off stage.

This was pretty bad, but it was better than being a bull in our kindergarten play about Mexico.

Mother's Day: A Gentleman Always Cherishes His Mother

I always get a little depressed working on Mother's Day. This is not due to the fact that I cannot be with my own mother [requisite flowers and poem were sent earlier this week, and morning call was made] but from working at "bow tie."

When I think of Mother's Day it is images of elbow macaroni glued to construction paper, or breakfast in bed with overly-diluted juice from concentrate and pancakes still liquid in the middle. Mother's Day to me is taking time away from the motherly routine of every day life to show your appreciation of that routine. Mother's Day has always been awkward for me ever since my mother has stopped providing motherly duties unto me. This is the feeling typified by "bow tie." Obviously, there are few eight-year-olds able to dig up the scratch for veal linguine at $28 a plate, so it is a lot of elderly mothers and grandmothers. "Bow tie" was just too quiet for the number of people we had. The awkward pauses and slumped postures of the mothers there were that of a funeral for the living. It had the feeling of, "Well, it's Mother's Day, time to go dig grandma out of the home for her spring time with us."

The only thing more insulting to a mother than forgetting Mother's Day would be to only remember her ON Mother's Day. Love your moms.

Travelate? A Gentleman Always Knows Exactly Who He Is.

The euphemism for my "bow tie" job is serving assistant, but most would know me as a busboy. I am the individual with the glazed over expression that brings you bread and butter, refills your water, and wishes your soul to eternal damnation if you ask me to box that half of a bite of fucking veal linguine.

"We're taking this home for our dog. He just loves prime rib."
"Hahaha.... I guess this really is a doggy bag then... hahaha"
Cue fake smile and me spitting in your dog's food.

Well, there is an individual at "bow tie" who is what I like to refer to as a wanker. Chronic masturbators lurk everywhere. Chances are if you have a bathroom in your office and more than 5 men someone has made love to themselves in that bathroom. Well B---- is a wanker. He will host a table of attractive women and then disappear for a little while claiming, "I had to wash my hands." But we know your secret B----... we all know.

Anyways, his girlfriend has the idea of being a personal traveling Pilates instructor. The plan is say Brooke Shields wants to go to the French Alps for a week, she would hire this young lady to go with her and keep her meat blanket body in shape. I thought it was a good idea, but needed a catchy name. After a shift of bouncing ideas off one another we decided on Travelates [the "lates" pronounced like the end of "Pilates"]. We were pleased with this name and Google it to see if it's taken. The first hit is Urban Dictionary.

Travlate:

A travelate is a person who can masterbate anywhere, he is not scared of a challange and will masterbate when he feels like it.

The look of revelation on his face was something in between "I thought I was the only one" and "My hidden shame, thy name is Travelate."

Monkey-Fighting Snakes?

True gentlemen don't cuss.

"I've had enough of the monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday-to-Friday plane."

How to make German stick

My college career in German was headed by a fiery young piece of academic Euro-Trash named Frau D--. She was able to make the material very relatable. We had an entire unit on club etiquette, ordering drinks, and safe sex. She said something along the lines of, "Europe is a sweet place to hookup. It's a little harder for Americans over there because most countries hate you. It's not like a European girl coming over here." I muttered, "Amen for that, girl." This is one of those points in your life where you catch yourself, and beg the question, "Are you really that incapable of controlling your soliloquies? Ahh.... you're still speaking out loud!"

I only visited her office once. I was having trouble translating some passages of Goethe and asked for some guidance. After chit-chatting for a while she picked up her camera to show me some pictures of her most recent travels in Germany. She initially called me across the desk, but thought better of it and said, "Let me see what is on here. It was my husband and I traveling together."

When wishing us a Happy Halloween holiday she dismissed our lecture mit, "Und... keine sex ohne condome." Is a translations necessary? "And.... no sex without condoms." What a woman.

Guest Bartending

Oh, how I wish you could have been to my guest bartending. I will share some of the better anecdotes of the evening with you. I must preface my narrative with my views of bartending and life in general. I think bartending is the worst job in the world. Basically Carm (my bartender friend at Jekyl and Hyde herinafter J&H) explains bartending as: You work when everyone is relaxing, relax when everyone is sleeping, and sleep when everyone is working, you'll never have New Years, St. Patrick's Day or the Fourth of July off, and people think that everything behind the bar is for sale. "So, basically you are a zombie." I confirmed all of these as true in one night. Here is a list of some of the exchanges.

• Kid With A Terrible Fake ID: A rather young looking white male presents me with an ID of a 31 year old Hispanic male. "Ok mister Santos? Could you tell me your address." He of course knows to memorize the address for somewhere in Kentucky. He's not a complete amateur so I up my game. He actually knows the drivers license number, which in itself is a sign it's a fake. I ask, "Mr Santos. What's your sign?" He is now a deer in the headlights. I know he's a Pices because his birthday was only a few days prior. "Uh, Scorpio?" I tell him nice try and to please leave. He says, "There are tons of underage people in here, I'm going to call the cops." I simply tell him that there is a station next door and he can walk over there himself. Surprisingly he does. The cops show up and I tell him the story, serve them a "Coca-Cola" and they leave.
• The Girls Who Mistakes Hogging Up Your Time With Flirting: J&H has, for some unkown reason, renamed all of their normal drinks into monsters. A young lady walks up and asks, "What's in a Frankenstein?" I tell her that it is basically a gin and juice. "What's in a Dracula?" It's wiskey, soda, and grenadine. "What's in a Fang?" It's banana liqueur, pineapple juice and gin. "What would you recommend?" she asks batting her eyelashes. In other situation at a bar like this I would have taken this as a "game on" situation, but with a bar of three-deep frat boys calling for Miller Lites and confirming that they do in fact have money by waving it in your face I say. "Sweetheart, no matter what you order it's going to come out as a straight Jager-Bomb." Apparently I have insulted her as a human being, "Why would you do that?" My biting sarcasm has gone from nibble to chomp and I have alienated another patron.
• The Girl Drink Drunk: The well-dressed man getting plastered off of $5 cranberry and vodkas has asks me to "freshen him up." I make a comment on how much I like that his shirt is so shiny, and that must have cost "no less than $65." "Try 90." I tell him that I have the perfect drink for him: Ginger Ale, grenadine, and plenty of cherries. "What the hell is this? I wanted a cranberry and vodka!" I tell him that it's called a Shirley Temple and it's basically the same thing.
  

So as everything else in life, I am simultaneously the best and worst at what I do. I was slinging beers and shots like drunken cowboy and exercising a Scottish shepherd's control of the drunken sheep, but made enemies faster than it took to ring up their tabs before leaving in a huff.

Line of the night: A girl asks me if I came here often, went back and giggled to her friends. When she came back I asked her if she knew how much a polar bear weighed, and when she sat there dumbfounded, I said "Enough to break the ice?" gave her a free shot, she shot it (without taking the cigarette out of her mouth), and then said, "Wait, I don't get it."

Silence on the Bus....

Riding the bus is never just a way to get from one place to another. It has a very polarizing effect on me. When it is absolute hell it goes like this:

"Yeah, so, he doesn't have to pay child support when he's in jail. What's up with that?"
"I know, I know, and then Kaylie was talking shit about me on my MySpace page about Jeff."
I interject in their non sequitur exchange and say, "I'll switch spots with you, so I'm not sitting between you and your friend."
"Nah, it's fine."

When it is absolute bliss:

"My kid has the same hair as you. Except his mama's white, so it's not as nappy as yours. Oh, and since mixed babies are the best, he's a lot cuter than you are."
"Sir, I would hope so. It's hasn't been easy being this ugly."
"Oh shit! This dudes clownin' back here. Hey everybody...! [cue bus attention] this dude's clownnnnnnin'!"

But beyond everything I've seen while riding a bus (emo teens feeling each other up, and hicks spitting chaw straight onto the floor) and heard (a 15-year-old girl named Princess going straight from telling me a story about stabbing her step-daddy while he tried to rape her into trying to come and hang out at my house) and experienced (businessman on derelict bum fist fights) I have never experienced the ultimate nirvana in public transportation: absolute silence.

I owe my skill of instant reaction to the unexpected to baseball and my father. Baseball, being the most boring of all sports to play and watch gives a young man a lot of time to think. In the field you think through every possible scenario before the pitch, double in the gap to you left, single right at you, where the runners are, who is batting, stealing, sliding, who's on deck, what pitchers they have in the pen, a bunt, why they call it bunting, bunt cake, pan cake, pan fried, fried rice, rice paddy, paddy wagon, grand wagoneer, "I want a Jeep," ad infinitum. After a while this just becomes a meditative trance know as "the zone", where you not so much react as anticipate the world that you are now one with. My father taught me how to do this, himself being far too meditative for his own good.

I apply this to every moment of my life. When I ride the bus and we go over a bridge the scenario of a fiery bus crashing into the river runs through my mind: calm the passengers, move everyone to the bottom of the bus, release both hatches, swim to safety. Today, while I was thinking about what I would do if I was suddenly stabbed by the man audibly praying behind me, the bus stops dead. That is when I achieved full enlightenment. For those 10 blissful seconds it was completely silent and complete dark. The stop marquee restarts and simply says,

"Clever Systems -- Ltd."

Go bus, I'm late for work.

The Lizard King of the Salvation Army

I was running errands on the South Side and decided to stop in at the Salvation Army to do a little scrounging. They have a rack next to the register that I think they think would be labeled as "stylish." I would not recommend aforementioned rack for men as it is usually Sean John, Wu Wear, and Ecko, but a few items did catch my eye, namely 5 pairs of leather pants. It is items like these that make thrifting fun. Thinking of the history and love bestowed up something as intimate as leather pants is hard thing to ignore on a rack. Upon closer inspection they ranged in waist size from 28 to 42. What sort of man with a 42 waist thinks he can pull off leather pants is either brave, stupid, or has a biting sense of irony. My co-worker Brian said he likes to think of it as a skinny man that got progressively fatter and finally decided to give up once he ballooned 14 inches around the gut.

My amusing thought of a 42" waisted man with leather pants was interrupted by a rather tall man reaching across me for the 34 waist leather pants. As I'm holding the 28s (my assumed size in leather pants) up to my face for inspection he asks me, "Hey man, did you see these leather pants?" I told him that in fact did see the leather pants that I was holding and described them as "rock star". Apparently he took this not as benign comment about pants but more as stage direction in a comedy of errors. He gripped the leather pants to his chest and started softly "Try to run, try to hide..." I said, "Sir?" Apparently this was the fuse to set of his rock star powderkeg. He throws his head back and thrusts the leather pants above his head now yelling, "Break on through to the other side, break on through to the other side, Break on through-oh," and he takes off running, swinging the pants around like a Terrible Towel, "Oh yeah" and repeating at naseum "Break on through, break on through, break on through."

Now, my simple proximity to the Lizard King and short exchange with him was enough for the other shoppers to assume that I was either his friend, or social worker. By the time he had switched over to singing "Sweet Child of Mine" everyone was looking at me to control this outburst. I simply made eye contact with a few people and just shrugged my shoulder. I figured this was ambiguous enough to either say, "I don't know him" or "I know him all too well." He finally stopped when it came to the solo part of "Sweet Child of Mine."

He took a bow, and I gave a slow clap.

Gymnastics?

In chit-chatting with a co-worker about what a kick-ass stay-at-home dad I would be, we somehow started talking about her friend that actively tried to turn her child gay. At first I was struck by the audacity of trying to turn your kid gay. But, after thinking about how many people try to turn their kids straight, my audacity turned to intrigue and then as always self-reflection and confession. This is where gymnastics came into play.

I am going to relate this story with comments embedded throughout.

Looking back on it, it would seem that my mother got her way when it came to all things raising the chilluns. We took music lessons, participated in school plays, and went to the dentist, usually against my fathers will (I mean they are baby teeth and going to fall out, what's the point). It seems the only time that he put up a fight was when my mother tried to enroll me in ballet (gay). He had to take a stand (straight). He made the counter-offer of dirt bike (super straight). My mother held strong with ballet (gay). He slowly worked his way down the straight pyramid to football (pretty straight), hockey (straight), lumberjack school (super straight but none existant). My mother held strong until my father essentially gave in and let forth the suggestion of "gymnastics" (gay).

Talking to him about this negotiation years later I asked him, "Dad, how exactly is gymnastics straighter than ballet?"
"I don't know I remember watching the '88 Olympics and thinking those dudes looked pretty manly. Then I saw that your mother made you lime green lycra pants for practice. And it was pretty much over when I saw your floor exercise."
"Yeah the palma horse is pretty much the equivalent of a mechanical bull at a gay bar."
"Well, I realize that now."

My co-worker and I aggreed that the vault was probably the manliest. You could imagine some dude in armor hurling himself over a horse to stomp on the bones of his enemy.

My Father's Lotto Plan.

Once during a family dinner my father proposed a very elaborate plan for how he would appropriate a large sum of lottery winnings he will never have. It was as follows:

• Preemptively give the largest giftable (non-taxed) sum to all non-immediate family members and tell them to never ask for money again (pronounced "Fuck Off")
• Set up a yearly trust for the children that can only be accessed after performing certain "tasks" throughout the year. Essentially he would set up a social obstacle course to replace any 9-5 job we would have. Some tasks were simple: perform 1000 hours of charity. Others were more extreme: hike the Appalachian trail, sail solo across "an ocean". Essentially he was going to make sure that we did just a few years of the trust and invested rather than relying on a yearly trust. I have a feeling all of his kids were prepared to risk life and limb in his "Death Tasks" rather than saving and smart investing.
• His charitable donations were odd, revealing interesting alliances and even more interesting rivalries. For him, Little League Baseball was good. Habitat for Humanity was bad. We did not press him on why.
• So, after all of these pragmatic and gregarious ways of spending his money on everyone but himself we asked what he would selfishly buy. He wanted to start a sod farm with lots of animals. He said, "I read about how people use these pellets to heat their houses now. I want in on the ground floor." Go figure.

It was an interesting clinic in fiscal fatherism. He essentially just wanted to provide for his family but also take into account the externalities of charity, thrift, and savings.

After he was done with his plan my youngest sister, blessed with the greatest comedic timing of the children simply asked, "Do you even go to work anymore?"

A New Dawn....

So, I've started a blog that I hopefully can stick to. Over the past few years I've noticed that I have an anecdote for pretty much any topic of conversation.

"I work at the city morgue."
"Did you know that most cadavers' heads are used for plastic surgery refresher courses? You didn't really think about that signing over your body to science."

"My mother just turned 50."
"So did Barbie. Did you know that she was based off of a German doll that was a prostitute? She was such a hit because she was the first mainstream doll of an adult in the U.S. Her designer Jack Ryan was Zsa Zsa Gabor's fifth husband. He once was so mad at her that her dismantled her Rolls Royce and refused to put it back together."

Etc.