Conspiracy Theory: Donald Trump is Andy Kaufman

Since his presidential campaign began with an anti-Mexican soundbite that might have ended a lesser politician’s bid right then and there, Donald Trump has baffled both the Republican establishment and the political pundits on television who figured that this was all an elaborate con job by the real-estate mogul to expand his brand and nothing more. So far, the Trump hate-filled balloon has only rose higher and higher, and the oxygen to the lungs of his critics seems increasingly thin. You’ve probably heard or posited conspiracy theories to explain the unexplainable Trump juggernaut, so I humbly present my own: Donald Trump is Andy Kaufman.

 

I’ll just pause here while those in the reading audience who don’t know who Kaufman was look him up on Wikipedia…

 

Okay, when I said that about Trump being Kaufman, there are one of two ways that you, the reader, could take it: 1.) I’m being facetious about Trump *actually* being Kaufman, a notorious performance artist who most assuredly passed away in 1984 from a rare form of lung cancer. I’m merely suggesting that Trump has perhaps captured the same anarchic spirit that Kaufman used to disrupt professional wrestling (as the “Intergender World Champion”) and unleashed it on the modern-day GOP. Or 2.) I am sincerely suggesting that Trump and Kaufman (who, let’s face it, you’ve never seen in the same room together at the same time) are one and the same, and that Kaufman is playing the obnoxious “Trump” character to perfection in his greatest role yet.

 

What if I told you I was leaning towards number 2?

 

No, hear me out: When he allegedly “died” in 1984 (at the height of the backlash from his Intergender Wrestling career, mind you, having turned heel to battle Jerry “The King” Lawler and supposedly suffered a broken neck and a public meltdown on David Letterman’s old NBC show in the process), Kaufman had pulled so many hoaxes and performances that left his audience’s heads scratching that no one believed it. Every few years (especially since the evolution of the internet), rumors persist that Kaufman is poised to “return” to the world at large after a significant time out of the public eye. Rumors of his return were especially persistent in 1999, upon the eve of the film Man In the Moon (a Kaufman biopic starring fellow comedian and performance artist Jim Carrey…wait, he was serious about that whole “anti-vaccine” thing?), and in 2004, the twentieth anniversary of his “death.”

 

As a Kaufman fan, I do admit that I wanted to believe that Kaufman perhaps had faked his death all those years ago, and that he would indeed return. But my more rational, less conspiracy-minded self was inclined to believe that no one would put their family through what Andy’s family suffered (and indeed, they were skeptical about his fatal diagnosis when it first came to light; they had put up with his fantasies and performances for far longer than the general public had). Still, when friends posted articles purporting to Kaufman sightings in Wal-Mart parking lots (perhaps akin to Elvis, Kaufman’s idol, who seems to haunt Waffle Houses nearly forty years after *his* alleged passing), I felt a twinge of “what if,” if only for a moment.

 

Perhaps to better understand my conceit that Trump and Kaufman are one in the same, it’s important to point out that Kaufman the man was universally loved and treasured by his close associates because, no matter how insane his antics, he was a deeply funny and warm human being, full of kindness. No one’s ever accused Trump of having a soul, to my knowledge. But Kaufman could go dark, for sure, whether as the wrestling heel or as his most beloved-or-hated alter ego, Tony Clifton. In this role, Kaufman got to play the world’s worst lounge lizard, a nightclub “entertainer” who got to be as cruel, crass, and boorish as Kaufman was sweet and kind in real life. Sometimes to throw the audience, Kaufman would appear onstage while Clifton was performing, causing fans who “knew” that Clifton was Kaufman in heavy make-up and garish Seventies garb to pause and reconsider. In those instances, it was actually Kaufman’s best friend and partner-in-crime Bob Zmuda beneath the distinctive Clifton wig and jowls. But the audience never knew that.

 

Now, I realize it’s crazy to suggest that Donald John Trump is not a real person at all but a creation of a talented performer whose most memorable characters either endeared themselves to the audience (Foreign Man/Latka on “Taxi”) or drove that same audience to hiss and boo and finally hate him (the wrestling champ, Clifton). But if you put aside the facts for a moment (or “facts”), doesn’t it seem plausible? After all, how do we know that Trump is who he says he is (son of a real-estate mogul, a mogul himself, a graduate of the Wharton Business School, etc.)? Couldn’t it all be a cleverly constructed ploy by Kaufman, long underground in the guise of this “Trump” (doesn’t the name along suggest it’s a pun on something, or else a too-real-to-be-real name, like that of fictional presidents in movies?) and finally ready to re-enter the public life? Or hasn’t he been playing Trump since 1984, if not earlier? Consider Trump’s facial appearance; you’d swear that could be just a really poorly-rendered latex mask, if you didn’t know any better. But what if you do know better? Why would his skin be so orange? And that hair, it’s obviously a cheap wig, perhaps clamped in place Joe Dirt-style to keep Kaufman/Trump’s brain from exposure to the elements?

 

My hypothesis (and keep in mind, like most conspiracy theorists, I only use scientific terms to make my outlandish claims appear legitimate): Sometime in the fall of 1983, Donald Trump as we knew of him before then dies in a deliciously ironic way for a rich asshole (like, say, actually trying to dive into a gold-coin pool like Scrooge McDuck and breaking his neck), before the news gets out Andy Kaufman gets ahold of this information somehow. Let’s say…carrier pigeon. No, Illuminati. Yes, every conspiracy theorist’s favorite bugaboo, who control everything, they *arrange* for Trump to die so that Kaufman (who can’t get work after the fall-out from his wrestling-heel days) can step into a new role. It’s Tony Clifton writ large, and he and Zmuda get to work. But they can’t have Kaufman known to inhabit the role, so they concoct the “rare lung cancer” diagnosis so that Kaufman (who was not a smoker) can suitably “die” with a cloud of suspicion over him to distract fans from the sudden re-emergence of Donald J. Trump from, say, several months of vacation in Antarctica. So when Kaufman’s “death” is announced in May 1984, Donald Trump can slip back into American consciousness and no one bats an eye. Over the rest of the decade, “Trump” becomes louder, more obnoxious, declares bankruptcy (actually a front so Kaufman can finally get actual surgery to “look like” Trump, he’s been wearing the latex mask all this time and it’s starting to show), bounces back, has numerous public scandals, takes to social media with the instincts of a tween Taylor Swift fan, and finally emerges in 2015, thirty-one years after his “death,” to destroy the GOP from the inside, because it will be the greatest Andy Kaufman performance of all time!

I suppose you have a better theory…?

The Semester Ahead (A Plan That Will Surely Be Revised Often)

One last week between now and the start of the fall semester at the university, which means I will also be teaching Composition to the young'uns who are coming in as freshmen. I really haven't even thought about the classes I'm signed up to take, to be honest (and for some reason, I signed up for four classes, I may re-think that by drop time). No, it's been all about thinking about me standing in front of a room, telling people "I'll be your teacher for this semester, and I will not tolerate any having of fun or joke-telling. I will run this classroom with an iron fist, you hear me?"

Though in my own experience as a student, such teachers rarely were memorable or that good at their jobs. No, the teachers I liked and from whom I learned the most managed to balance out discipline and joviality. If you messed up something in their class, you didn't fear their loud yelling so much as their lack of any yelling, just a stern look of disapproval and disappointment. I hope to emulate that in my own teaching this year. But if I have to, I will lower the mother-f*&%-ing boom on those young punks.

Some things I hope to not do or not do as much:

1.) Be online - a simple look at my activity log on Facebook for any day over the past three months is enough to shame me into considering rehab...even as I type this up and plan on posting it on FB. I never said I was perfect. I did cut back on online "killing time" shit last year with my school work, and I imagine my students would prefer it if I placed their work over any time I could be spending trading jokes with friends online. It helps that I don't have internet at my place, though I do have a TV, which leads me to number 2

2.) Watch TV - this is helped by the fact that a lot of my shows are off the air or just on nights where it'd be far better for me to sleep. Jon Stewart leaving the Daily Show, for one (though I for one welcome our new fake-news anchor who is also named Trevor), Colbert being on the Late Show now also. I love The Nightly Show, and @midnight, but my schedule is thus: Monday, Wednesday and Friday I got to be up and ready to go to teach at eight in the morning. So no late nights Tuesdays or Thursdays, and it wouldn't hurt me to get to bed earlier the rest of the week. Yes, there's this thing called DVR, no I don't have it. I've over-indulged on TV this summer (good and bad), there really are fewer and fewer things for me to get excited about (I refuse to watch NBC after the way they shat all over Community, for instance).

3.) Stay up late - I think if I'm "staying up late" on a night where I'm not planning on getting up at five the next morning, it had better be because I'm working on something for one of my classes or working on something I've assigned my students and which they have turned in and are expecting a grade on. Because few college students are pacified with the "sticker for participation" tactic anymore.

4.) Read for fun - I've overindulged this summer, which is good. A lot of the "reading for fun" became, either by design or by accident, reading-for-my-creative-thesis, and I've already got a pretty hefty list of things that I could say inspired me directly or indirectly with whatever shape my final thesis ends up being. I'll still need the occasional trashy cash-in book about "stupid things" like sports or celebrities behaving badly, but I hope to limit that.

5.) Eat crappy food - my waistline expanded over the first two semesters of grad school, and I was all set to start getting up early and walking around Sertoma, as well as cutting back on the obvious crap I ate. But then I forgot to set my alarm the first full day off from school, and it's been that way ever since. I hope to have time to do the bare minimum of exercise, but cutting back on terrible food (in that it's terrible for you, not terrible to eat) would help immensely.

Now, having said all that: plans tend to change once they meet reality, and I imagine many of those things will falter when confronted with whatever reality springs up. But I know this going in, and I know that I don't want to let anyone down, least of all my students who put work into their class assignments (I would hope, anyway). I volunteered for the early shift, mostly because I figured I'd have an easier time of it with parking (I hope, anyway) but also because I figure it's best to get the teaching out of the way early in the day, like going third or fourth in a speech class. I hope so, anyway. There's a whole lot of hope in this, I guess. Teaching is one of those things where you never know how you'll be at it until you try it. And I'm about to get my call-up in a little over a week's time.

Hopefully I don't break a leg literally

Jon Stewart Leaves "Daily Show," Opens Up Neighborhood Arby's

Like a lot of you, I discovered The Daily Show when I was in college (or maybe it was on a trip to the beach, when the house my family was staying at happened to have Comedy Central...anyway, for the purposes of this story, let's say college). I was charmed by the "fake news" format, the skewering of a tired old dinosaur of news-gathering, the nightly news. The host was tall, blond, a former Sports Center guy who seemed like he would coast on this gig for a while.

I'm talking about Craig Kilborn, the original host of the show. I went to college for the first time a long, long time ago.

But then, things were different: I thought I'd manage to finagle my way into a job on Conan O'Brien's NBC show as a writer, so I neglected class. You can already tell how that turned out without me going into further detail. Kilborn and the Daily Show were required viewing in my college dorm room, mostly because my roommate for my first semester liked to stay up late and I...I had eight o'clock class. In the morning. No wonder I didn't feel like attending. At any rate, Comedy Central was something that I didn't have back in old Walhalla, not anymore (we'd had CC back when we first got cable, twenty-five years ago, but it wasn't really "Comedy Central" yet). And when I flunked out and had to return home with my tail between my legs, it was something that I didn't have again, until about 2005 or 2006.

By then, of course, Kilborn was long gone (first to CBS, then into the yawning void that characterizes formerly famous people as "has-been." I'm sure he'll have a reality show before all is said and done). Jon Stewart, whom I was aware of only as a middling actor in some films I kinda avoided (he was in some Adam Sandler movies, and Death to Smoochie), was the host of the show, and he had become a force of nature by taking on the Bush administration's criminal war in Iraq. I'd bought the book America without having seen the show because, well, I just had a feeling that it was in my outrage wheelhouse. 2004 was probably the angriest-at-Bush I had ever been (especially when the asshole won a second term, I was livid), and that Daily Show book soothed my heartbroken liberal soul.

So we got Comedy Central sometime in 2005 or 2006, because the good people at Northland figured I and my grandparents had had our fill of CMT ("hey, it's a channel, I guess") and other lousy programming options. We also got VH1 (and I was able to reconnect with music and care about it again up until Iggy Azalea came along). But Comedy Central meant The Daily Show, as well as (eventually, because I didn't like it at first) The Colbert Report.

I won't bore you with the near-decade then that I've had to watch the show under Stewart's tenure, nor the moments that made me laugh hardest or made me think the most (sometimes they were both in the same act). And with Trevor Noah coming in to take over, it's not like The Daily Show is dying. But it feels like it.

I know that, during the time I wasn't able to see the show (yes, I know, there's this thing called "the internet" with all kinds of videos of cats playing keyboards and other nonsense, but be patient with me), Stewart steered the show away from the genial mockery of the Kilborn era into a more potent, more focused attack on the media and on the ways in which certain administrations (like, oh I don't know, the Bush one) manipulated that media for their own benefit. A lot of those same outlets seem to be tripping over themselves to damn with faint praise Stewart as he embarks on his final week of shows. I saw something on Fox News (if ever there was a "fake news outlet," it's those jackholes) where the once reputable Howard Kurtz tried to say that Stewart's "secret meetings" with Obama were a big deal. This is the same network that practically lived in Dick Cheney's sphincter from 2001 to 2008...anyway, the fact is that yes, Stewart is a leftie (and not just in terms of which hand he writes with). So what? News itself, the real deal, has been moving away from "objective" reporting for so long that I can't even begin to think of when it last was indeed objective (Ancient Sumer, maybe?). Bill O'Reilly is the right's Jon Stewart, only not funny on purpose. Sean Hannity is Colbert's character without the irony. And your point is what, exactly?

For as much as I'll miss Stewart when he made me laugh, it won't mean as much without the moments when something happened that was terrible, and I anticipated that evening's or that week's first new episode, to see his commentary about it. The most recent, on the shootings in my home state, might rank as just the most honest moment in news on the entire event, because the "agenda" Stewart was pushing that night was just outrage that this shit continues to happen, and that we don't seem willing to do anything about it (oh, we're able. Don't let anyone tell you we're not). I know Trevor Noah will do his best to fill that void (and Larry Wilmore, on The Nightly Show, is easily the peer of Stewart when it comes to showing outrage at horrific events, while still trying to save us all with the comedy that makes such tragedies bearable). But it won't be the same.

During Jon Stewart's tenure, he seemed to age well beyond his years. He's fifty-two, I think, but he looks far, far older. Trying to make sense of all the crap that passes for "news" these days will do that to a man, I'm sure, and I think he deserves a rest. But goddam it, I need him around to mock the powerful and unrepentant as he's done for fifteen years (almost ten of which I got to see). Imagine what he could do with a Trump presidency...oh lord, if that's what it takes to get him to come back, let him stay retired.

At any rate, the world of news (fake or otherwise) is better off for Stewart's tenure. You may disagree, but that's your opinion. And if you think Stewart was bad for this country, well...what's say you and me go get a meal down at Arby's? You know what, you go ahead and eat that roast beef sandwich, I can wait.

Trump Takes on the Presidents (All of 'Em)

George Washington: "Are you kidding me? Guy couldn't win a battle against the Brits to save his life. Listen, here's what I would've done: negotiate with the lobsterbacks to have just Manhattan and the Greater Metropolitan Area, let them have the rest. I mean, I'm just saying. And when I chop down a cherry tree, I own it.”

 

John Adams: "Loser."

 

Thomas Jefferson: "Dummy, and a loser."

 

James Madison: "I take turds bigger than him."

 

James Monroe: "I got a doctrine for you, build a wall on the Mexican border. Would've saved us all a lot of trouble."

 

John  Quincy Adams: "I didn't like this movie the first time I saw it, when it was his dad. Talk about nepotism."

 

Andrew Jackson: "His nickname was 'Old Hickory.' Mine is 'Young, Virile Stud.' What a loser, though he did try to get the Indians out of here. Lovely people, but they couldn't run a casino before I came along."

 

Martin Van Buren: "You know, I like his sideburns, not going to lie. Otherwise, a loser."

 

William Henry Harrison: "Who the fuck is this?"

 

John Tyler: "Loser, waste of space."

 

James K. Polk: "I'm just saying, you go annexing Mexican lands and then you're surprised at how many of them are here illegally?"

 

Zachery Taylor: "Loser, I don't believe he even served in the Mexican War."

 

Millard Fillmore: "I prefer Mallard Fillmore, I'm just being honest."

 

Franklin Pierce: "Hawkeye? Please, least-likable MASH cast member. I was always a Frank Burns fan."

 

James Buchanan: "I'm just saying..."

 

Abraham Lincoln: "I go to a theater, you don't see me getting shot."

 

Andrew Johnson: "Never met a whiskey bottle he didn't like. Loser."

 

US Grant: "I question whether he's a war hero."

 

Rutherford B. Hayes - Grover Cleveland: "Losers, all of them. I got a meeting in ten, you think we can speed this along?"

 

William McKinley: “What, are you making up guys now? Get serious.”

 

Theodore Roosevelt: "Pansy. No real man wears glasses."

 

William Howard Taft: "Somebody should follow him with a tuba, making fart noises."

 

Woodrow Wilson: "See what I said about TR."

 

Warren G. Harding: "More like Soft-ing, am I right?"

 

Calvin Coolidge: “Instead of ‘Hard-ing,’ you see?”

 

Herbert Hoover: "Get it? Soft-ing?"

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "You don't know comedy. I know comedy. Oh, this guy. Cripple, loser. Wouldn't even get out of his chair to greet troops as they came home."

 

Harry S. Truman: "I never trust anyone from Missouri."

 

Dwight D. Eisenhower: "I question his war record."

 

John F. Kennedy: "Son of a bitch had better hair than me. Oswald took care of that."

 

Lyndon B. Johnson: "If it had been me, Vietnam would be 'Trump-Vietnam,' casinos all up and down the coast."

 

Richard Nixon: "Who doesn't tape themselves saying racist things?"

 

Gerald R. Ford: "I don't know why we ever voted for him for president."

 

Jimmy Carter: "Toothy bastard, am I right?"

 

Ronald Reagan: "Great hair, though I don't believe it's his natural color."

 

George Bush: "See what I said about pansies wearing glasses."

 

Bill Clinton: "I told him, I said 'Bill, outsource your affairs.' But did he listen?"

 

George W. Bush: "Loser, pathetic. Iraq would be a golf course if I was in charge."

 

Barack Obama: "He's from Kenya, he's black, and I assume some black Kenyans are good people. But no, not this one."

You Know, That Guy, the One With the Hair (Do I Have to Say His Name?)

Been a while since I checked in here, now that racism is over in South Carolina I don't know what all to complain about.

Just kidding (unfortunately), racism is alive and well in SC. If you ever bought stock in a company that sells or manufactures Confederate flags, you've seen your investment pay dividends. But alas, that is to be expected.

It's almost August, and August has never been my favorite month. For one thing, it's always the barometer I use for how hot it is in June and July (as in "if it's this hot now, imagine what it'll be like in August." I feel like, thanks to climate change, the dread of an August afternoon is perhaps more legit than it was beforehand). For another, it's the time when school starts back, though I'm now looking forward to school because I'm back in it. Sure, there's the prospect of having to teach a class this semester (as well as the next), on account of "that's kind of what teachers do and I'm going to school to teach/write and so...," but I'm not good in front of crowds. The one time I was good in front of a crowd, it was 2007, we'd just lost a game to Boston College (who are the Washington Generals of the ACC, so that should tell you how bad the mood was that night), and I got up on a small abutment to try and paraphrase the "friends, Romans, countrymen" speech. I had been drinking earlier in the night, but I was sober-ish by then. I was just being a punk kid.

Now I have to be a punk kid in front of other younger, punkier kids. And I have to be an adult about it. Oh...boy.

At any rate, lots of stuff going on in the news, naturally. My favorite ESPN show host, Keith Olbermann, is wrapping up his final week on the air at ESPN 2. I feel like the One Person Who Watched His Show this time around, and even I wasn't enough. After they ran off Bill Simmons, I began to think that ESPN was trying to dumb down their brand (or "Skip Bayless-Stephen A. Smith" it, if you will). With Olbermann's exit and that of Colin Cowherd (not a favorite, but at least he wasn't always sipping the Kool-Aid of the major leagues...not always, anyway), I think my suspicions are confirmed.

Also, Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show in three weeks. His replacement is a guy named "Trevor," which makes me happy from a personal standpoint. But I think we're going to miss Stewart's brand of take-no-shit and take-no-prisoners comedy this upcoming election cycle.

Which reminds me...no, not going to mention him by name (if you say it three times while looking in a mirror, his hairpiece appears on your natural hair and overwhelms it). Suffice it to say, I am just as sick of You-Know-Who as you probably are. But the GOP laid down for decades in the gutter with un-Reconstructed Southerners and bigots of all stripes: this is karma for them. In that sense, I'm happy for He Who Cannot Be Named's entry into the race. I just hope it lasts long enough that somebody from my side gets to win (I'm not sold on HRC, but mostly because I don't like obvious choices. I want a little drama with my nomination process...not as much as what's going on over on the other side, but just a little bit would be nice).

Man, if you think it's hot outside now, wait until August...

The Day They Drove Old Dixie Down

This past week has brought me to a more appreciative sense of my South Carolinian-ness, if that's even a word. As you are no doubt aware, we had the unspeakable crime of murder visited upon our state on June 17, in the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. The crime was racially motivated, and the killer took photos of himself with various racial totems (including the American flag, which last time I checked did in fact fly over a nation where the distance between "all men are created equal" and the reality has been closing over the last century or so, but is nowhere near closed). What took up the media's attention, rightly or wrongly, was the fact that our state capital grounds hosted a Confederate battle flag for well over fifty years, first over the dome itself (at the bottom, below the American and state flags) and then at a "memorial for Confederate dead" when a compromise was reached over the flag's place on state grounds in the early part of this century.

That flag is down now, for good, and I couldn't be happier.

I grew up in the South, and of course I was taught that the South "had just cause" to demand its separation from the United States, that it was basically a follow-up to the 13 Colonies breaking ties with England. That the war hadn't been fought over slavery but "state's rights." I was brought up to believe this, at least in school. My mother encouraged my early reading, and my early love of history, and she never looked at the books I brought home from the library to say "oh, that's not something you should be reading" (not that I was bringing home issues of Playboy or anything: this is a public library in the South we're talking about), but my point is that she never once told me that I couldn't read something, and I read a lot (or started a lot of books, sometimes giving up after a few pages because, as a kid, I probably would've been happier with books with pictures of talking animals or whatever).

I educated myself about the war, read as much about it as I could, and I came to the conclusion that the war was fought over one thing: slavery.

I know that a lot of people defending the flag over the past month have argued otherwise, but the idea that the Confederate flag represents anything but a government bent on preserving servitude of its black inhabitants (they weren't considered "citizens" by any stretch) is patently false and delusional. Do I think every single Confederate soldier was a racist slave-owner or sympathetic to the idea that blacks were inferior and thus needed to be kept in chains? No, I do not. I think that the average infantry soldier (usually the poorest of the poor, and unable to afford slaves anyway) probably fought more because their homes were being invaded. I think that you can serve with valor and heroism for a cause which does not merit it. The Southern soldiers, the ones who displayed courage and bravery, did so in the service of a cause which was far, far beneath them. Those who fought for the preservation of slavery (including the leading politicians of the Confederacy, and many of her generals) deserved to lose the war in 1865.

Good thing I didn't give out my personal address on this thing, or else there'd be a mob of Confederate flag-waving activists on my lawn when I get home.

The fact is, the South was wrong to break away from the United States, because it did so in the service of a cause which didn't seek to honor the foundations of liberty but because it sought to deny them, to a sizable portion of its population (ironically, had the South tapped into the manpower of blacks in the region earlier as soldiers in the army, they could very well have done better militarily once the tide turned at Gettysburg. And no, the fact that the Confederacy finally grudgingly began to enlist companies of black soldiers does not mean that the racism and hatred which fueled their desire to do anything but arm slaves is suddenly and magically washed away). Whatever the Confederate flag meant before the end of the war (and it meant slavery), it came to mean far worse when taken up as a banner by the Klan and other terrorist organizations in the immediate aftermath of the war and the implementation of Reconstruction.

When the flag went up our state house flag pole in the early Sixties, it wasn't to honor the Confederate dead. It was a giant middle finger (and a threat) to the efforts of Civil Rights leaders to enact change in the South. That we're still arguing this so long after the last shots of the war were fired, and I see people that I know and like (and even some relatives) online say that it's "heritage, not hate," is heartbreaking to me. I don't expect anyone reading this to have their minds or hearts changed just because I dropped some knowledge about the Confederacy and the Civil War. But I got to hope for it.

So seeing the flag taken down, finally, on Friday morning, it was a great day to be an American, and a South Carolinian. All these people flying Rebel flags from their trucks, who went to the trouble to spend money on such things, they don't have a rallying point on the State House grounds anymore. In fact, the song "Rednecks" by Randy Newman comes to mind. It's a song written from the point-of-view of a Southern racist in the Seventies, and as such it uses a certain word that white people really shouldn't say anymore (and indeed, Newman saying it in character might not assuage casual listeners who might hear it out of context), but it's a beautiful song in terms of capturing not just the mindset of the South but also of the North (where racism, as it turns out, is not a foreign concept). But for a long time, deservedly so, the South and white Southerners have been known as the nation's preeminent racists. Taking down the flag doesn't automatically mean that racism is over in SC, but it signals that maybe we can start trying to do better, to pay back what we owe. I do think there's a place for the flag, but that place is in a museum, where a respectful treatment of the past (in all its unpleasant aspects) can take place. All these people flying the flag now, they're signs of the past, not of the future. To quote Newman, they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. And now their pathetic symbol of pride is gone from the grounds of the State House.

Good riddance to old rubbish.

More Nonsense on My Part

The past few weeks have brought a lot of attention to my home state of South Carolina, for reasons that at first were terrible and horrific (the massacre of nine black church-goers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston by a horribly racist and evil little shit) and then, however fleetingly, hopeful (the sense of unity that took hold amongst blacks and whites in this state, not the "race war" that said little shit wanted to start). Then people started talking about the Confederate battle flag and...

Well, I've made my position clear on Facebook (as have a lot of my friends, pro and con) but I figure it could use re-stating here: the flag was put up in the early Sixties as a rebuke to the growing Civil Rights movement of that period, so even if you buy into the notion that the Confederacy wasn't somehow about slavery (which, btw, it was; I've been a Civil War buff all my life, and the evidence of intent on the Confederacy's part to preserve slavery is easy to find assuming you want to, if you're inclined the other way), the placement of the flag, first on the pole with the American and state flag (high over the capital dome in Columbia) and then afterwards on a monument on state-capital grounds, was a clear example of racial animus. It has no business on state or federal property, unless that property is a museum.

Which leads me to this: when it comes time to consider my MFA options, the states I'll look to with the most interest will likely be ones that never had any reason to fly the Rebel flag in the first place, much less as a symbolic gesture against basic human rights.

In a discussion we all had with our advisor, the point was made that, for PHD or MFA programs after grad school, it might behoove us to look outside of our immediate vicinity, if only because a Clemson degree might have some sort of novelty in, say, Harvard or Yale (not that I'm foolish enough to think either of those snotty snob-factories would take me in, but anyway). Schools in the South are well familiar with us mostly because of football (and depending on the season's fortunes, either they're well-disposed towards us because we can be beat or they bear resentment because we can't be beat). So me going to, say, the University of Georgia and saying "let me in your MFA program" (assuming they have one) isn't a shoe-in. Or maybe it is...I don't know what UGA's standards are. But they are the school where the members of R.E.M. met, so they've got that going for them.

I will look at schools in the South, naturally, especially those in and around New Orleans (I freaking love that city, and I've only been the one time). Also, I wonder if Vandy in Nashville might be an option, if only because their football team usually sucks and therefore I'm likely to end up having plenty of room to move around on a football Saturday (no offence, Vanderbilt). But I'd really like to try my luck north of the Mason-Dixon, to somewhere outside the Confederacy or the "border states": Missouri (Ferguson pretty much proved that the "Show Me State" was a Confederate state in all but name only), Kentucky (I'm sure they're lovely people, but there's Mitch McConnell), West Virginia (y'all was still part of old Virginia for the first couple of years of the war), Maryland, and Delaware (yes, Delaware was a slave state, if my 1960s World Book "map of slave states" is to be believed. Which would mean that was the last time anyone noticed Delaware for any reason). I realize that schools in these states might stumble across this blog o' mine when I start sending out resumes and say "hey, what's he got against Delaware?" To which I respond (because they might be the only places offering) "Not a damn thing. I love Delaware! It's so close to Philadelphia!"

There's the famous "Iowa Writer's Workshop" at the University of Iowa, which is justly famous for producing some great writers. Bet it's hella-expensive, though. Syracuse has a shared school color (orange) and George Saunders, but we were warned that picking a school simply because of someone in our field (in my case, creative writing) might not work out if said person is too busy to really help us, and I have to keep that in mind. Plus, there's cold weather to consider: I am not a fan of winter. I'm not a fan of summer, though. Spring and fall are more my speed, which is a shame because both are disappearing because of global warming.

At any rate, I don't ask much of my prospective MFA program: a good school but not too expensive, in a state with no former (or current) allegiances to the South which would cause it to want to fly a Rebel flag on state-owned grounds, with a professor who's good at writing but who can make time for me, and temperate weather all the year round. Is that too much to ask?

I will say that, for now anyway (because it could always change), I'm proud of my fellow South Carolinians (well, the ones not flying Rebel flags all of a sudden, anyway). We Southerners in general have often been the butt of national jokes, and the focus of a lot of opposition from others because of our clearly biased and horrific treatment of our neighbors (if said neighbors happened to have different pigment than ours, for example). We have a strong legacy not just of stubborn pride but of haunted pride, which permeates much of the literature of our region (there's the "two big Bills" Faulkner and Styron, Charles Portis, Eudora Welty, Flannery and Carson, Walker Percy and Roy Blount Jr., and so on), and I have at times been either ashamed or proud of my Southern identity. We is complicated for sure, but this time of national and state-wide mourning has shown me that we are better than we think we can be, when we really have to be. Now, at some point we'll probably go back to being gubbers and rednecks, but for now, for this moment, we're standing side by side with our neighbors, trying to love when it's easier to hate because love is so much more rewarding. For however long that lasts, it'll be a validation of our common humanity. The Charleston Nine will live long after the little shit that killed them takes his last breath and is dumped aside except by those who thrive on hate. Maybe I'll rescind my "no former Confed states" clause in my MFA search, because maybe the South deserves a little more credit than that. Maybe, anyway...

Father's Day for the Fatherless

I don't know when exactly I became aware of the fact that my birth father wasn't in the picture. I know that, for much of my childhood, I looked to my grandfather on my mother's side of the family as a "daddy," and even called him such well until my sister (then a toddler) provided us all with the nickname that's stuck to this day: "Big Pop." That's my "half-sister technically, because she and my half-brother have a different father than I do, but we get on each other's nerves enough that we might as well be full-blooded relatives." Anyway, I know that, when I finally realized my father wasn't like other kids' dads (in that he wasn't a presence in my life), I began a tentative and ongoing quest to both seek him out and avoid him like the plague. I think that was born of both the urge to address this gaping hole in my personal history (my father's side of the family) and also my desire to fill that hole with anything other than what the truth might be, in case I didn't like that truth very much. My dad could be anybody, I decided, even a famous person that my mom had never probably had opportunity to run into (because we share a birthday, I thought John Lennon might have somehow fathered me, though that could be excused to my budding Beatlemania at the time).

I do know some basic facts about him, my real dad, including his name. I'm not going to share that name here, because I want the option (exercised since I was just becoming aware of my father's absence, and the attendant anger that triggered) of not having to look him up or have him looked up for me by someone who means well. I do know how to get in touch with him, as it turns out. But I'm still not sure that I'm at a place emotionally where that would be a good thing for me. So anyway, my father was some years older than my mom when they met, he'd been in the armed forces in Vietnam (my mom showed me a picture of him in Marine-looking uniforms, but I'm not 100 percent sure that's what he ended up in, though I do remember a sort of "yearbook" from Parris Island, the Marine training complex in SC), and he was pursuing some sort of degree at the same college she attended, which is how they met. When my mom showed me a picture of him in her yearbook, he had the whole "late Seventies" look going on (long hair, tacky moustache, leisure suit), and there was a menorah in the background, leading me briefly to consider that my dad was Jewish (it would explain my fandom of such Jewish entertainers as Woody Allen or Mel Brooks, perhaps), but as it turns out that was just a decoration in the library where he was posed. He had a motorcycle, he and my mom weren't a great romance by any means but they got together and later on, I came along. When I was born, he wasn't in the picture; my mom says that years later, he wanted to try and help raise me but my mom thought that would be unfair to me to suddenly have this guy that I didn't know in my life. I don't blame her for that or fault her one bit. I know it would've been an adjustment, and required a whole lot of explaining.

My dad, according to my mom, moved to the beat of his own drummer, and I think that's the most obvious thing I got from him. I've never been entirely comfortable with "received wisdom," I've always tried to be different (or if I wasn't trying, I was still different) from whatever the prevailing tone or opinion might be. Something that I got from him because of his absence was a ready identification with those who similarly grew up with an absentee parent, usually a father missing from the scene. I identified with John Lennon because of our shared birthdays and our absentee dads, and thought maybe that, if I became famous for something, my dad would see my name and once again feel like he's missed out on something (assuming he'd felt like that to begin with). I identified with Barack Obama when I learned that he was raised by his mom and her parents (his maternal grandparents), much like I was. I identify with Francois Truffaut because he had the chance to met his natural father and decided that it might be best to just let sleeping dogs lie.

I also read about famous folks whose fathers wouldn't win any parenting awards anytime soon (Brian Wilson's dad/band manager swindled his son out of millions in songwriting profits, Marvin Gaye's dad shot him on April Fool's Day). Whenever I hear someone talk about "family values," and how the father should be in the household (otherwise the worth of the children being raised in that household are somehow devalued), I get angry and defensive. I turned out fine, I want to say. Or at least 75%, more or less, on my good days...

But I want to end with talking about those fathers who stayed, among them some of my friends who have been or just now are becoming parents. I learned, thanks to my dad's absence, that a family doesn't have to be the basic man-woman-child(-ren) set-up. Even if you're a product of a single-parent home, or an adoptive set of parents, or what have you, you have a family, a legacy. You have value no matter who missed out on your childhood and adulthood. I might never take that step to contact my dad, but it won't be because I'm afraid he won't like or love me. It'll be my choice. I don't need to have my father, by his presence or absence in my life, determine mine, or whether I'll be there for any hypothetical kids that I have. I have a strong group of role models (beginning with my maternal grandfather) for how to parent, how to be there for your kids. I wouldn't be getting in touch with my father because I need a dad. It would be nice to know if there are any diseases on his side of the family that I need to watch out for, naturally, but I would want to get in touch with him if and when I'm ready.

At any rate, just be kind to each other (if we learn anything from the Charleston shootings, let it be that)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (So Far)

Officially, it's not even summer yet. Seriously, look at the calendar. I'll wait...

See? The official start is something like a week off, and yet it's hotter than the dickens outside in my part of the world. Well, it's not that bad, really. But it's pretty humid-y at times.

I feel like this is my "First World/White People Problems" post, but I just don't know what to do with myself and haven't for about a month. School let out before May started, and I still have a couple of weeks before my summer class starts. In the meantime...

Bupkus.

I was hoping that all the time off would lead me to write short stories of amazing depth and skill that the literary world would have to take notice. Or at least write enough to fill out my prospective thesis-thingy which I will be hoping to turn in at the end of my grad-school journey.

But I've started a couple of things, have yet to finish them...which is fine. Really. I have plenty of time for that nonsense. Right?

At any rate, if you know me you know that this is a rare thing for me, to have so much time off (and indeed, besides the class I'm taking later, it's not time off that's ending anytime soon). I should be able to enjoy it. Hell, I've earned it. But...

Like I said, this is my "First World Problems" post: I've dithered about getting a job this summer, I could always do that. Also, I have been writing...just, it's non-fiction stuff that I've done in the hopes of placing said things with websites or magazines in the not-too-distant future. I guess I just like complaining too much to enjoy the breather.

And it *has* been nice to have a breather, don't get me wrong. I've been reading for fun (as well as reading towards an eye of adding some of the stuff as "inspiration" for my eventual thesis). Yesterday I spent about three hours in my uncle's pool, trying to soak up the sun while my cousin and niece splashed around me and called me "bad paddle cake" or "bad funnel cake" (derived from a day when they pretended to stomp me when I was laying down on the floor, calling me a paddle cake or funnel cake for whatever reason it is that a seven-year-old and a four-year-old come up with such nicknames). Today I have spent about four hours online. And when I get home, I'm going to get my William Styron on.

I checked out a book which collected some of Norman Mailer's letters recently and, while I didn't get far into the book, I did pick up on Mailer's enthusiasm for Styron's first novel, Lie Down in Darkness. I have that book, along with The Confessions of Nat Turner, and yesterday I picked up The Long March. I think it was well over a year ago that I read Sophie's Choice and thought "man, this guy is a great fucking writer!" I just haven't made time for his stuff since. Having read through the complete works of Charles Portis and a good chunk of Walker Percy, it seems only fitting to try and read some of my way through Styron's work. It may not have any influence on my thesis in the end, but that's not the only reason to read things.

Though it's a *good* reason...

Anyway, my legs and feet are starting to be sore at the end of the day, which means I should probably invest in some new shoes (I've had the pair that I wear regularly since about 2013, so probably time to get some newer ones). Network TV is summer reruns, I'm planning to keep up with The Daily Show up until Jon Stewart leaves but other than that it's Bar Rescue reruns and maybe a baseball game or two.

Internet (a Play) ...actually, a poem

I don't consider myself a poet, but for one of my classes last semester we had the option of getting creative and so I chose to do so. I'm self-publishing this here because current events have caught up with some of the subjects (like the Royal Baby being born) and because I like it in spite of the fact that I'm working in a format in which I am not terribly comfortable. This format was inspired by Gertrude Stein's work, and I hope it's playful while being serious. At any rate, enjoy:

I

 

Internet

Inter net

In ter net

In her net

I sink, I find

Myself after long nights

Staring at photos

 

II

 

A play should consist of acts

Actors

Sets

Dialogue

Scripts

Audience

Internet has some, but not all

Of that

 

III

 

Meet the stars of the play

Of the interplay

Of the internet

Avatars all

(and really, who uses their

Real picture anyway?

 

IV

 

Someone said

“Let there be no love poems until

There is justice between the races”

And someone else said “At night, alone,

I marry the bed”

And yet another someone said “I am Dionysus, son of Zeus, come to

Thebes, where my mother gave me birth, struck by lightning.”

 

V

 

This is where the audience applauds.

 

VI

 

            The last century saw wars, famines, genocides, religious intolerance and wholesale murder of entire groups of people. And they had the telegraph, the telephone, the moving picture, the still picture, radio, and television. You really think an email sent just in time can stop a war?

 

VII

 

Isn’t it nice to think so?

 

VIII

 

I’m Henry the Eighth I am

I got married to the widow next door, she’d been married seven times before

And every one was a Henry

(Hmm, makes you wonder

Why men keep marrying her

And why they keep turning out dead

It wasn’t a rock, it was a rock lobster!

 

IX

 

Now comes the part when I confess

Roman numerals past this point are confusing

So I’d better make this count

A conversation is a conversation is a conversation

Did I mention?

“A Poem for Speculative Hipsters”

Preach on, Baraka

Blast manifesto

Blast the manifesto

Blast the man with your festo

Fist-o

 

X

 

Okay, after this point we’ll be taking

Suggestions from the audience

Improv, improve, im-prove

Mindless chatter of the mindless classes

Autocorrect my spelling, spilling

Aught to correct Mickey Spillane

Puns, puns, puns

No fun (said Iggy, circa 1969

Ten years before I was born

I like old stuff, I make no apologies

Hipster before there was hipster

And now my hips are old

Puns, puns, puns

Crisis in the Middle East

Scott Walker in the Middle West

The Duggars breeding like rabbits

 

XI

 

Is it unfair that I’m creeped out by them? No one talks about how such a religious family fucked their way to TV fame, but seriously? Why do we assign morality to celebrity? Aren’t the two mutually exclusive? If Tim Tebow could throw a forward pass, would it matter how much he dry-humps Jesus? As I write this, “the world is waiting for William and Kate to have their next child.” I crank up “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols, constitutional monarchy means “the royals are figureheads” so who gives a shit?

 

XII

 

Truth or dare

Dare

I dare you to speak the truth

Puns, puns, puns

Truth is, I’m not a poet

Bet you didn’t know that

Love poems, love poems, I love poems

Just can’t write them

See what I mean?

Sacred Profanity

Profane Scarcity

I would love to be in love

Or at least in like

Online, on the line

Line on you, girl, hypothetical

 

XIII(?)

 

Love is lovers love to lovers love

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

See you on the flip side

The Cool Side

Standing alone at the dance, watching the girls dance

I have no business dancing

I have no business writing poetry

I have no business writing poetry about dancing

I have no business dancing about poetry

“Dancing About Poetry”

Hmm, sounds like a title

14

 

Christ the redeemer

Christ, the redeemer

Christ, it’s the redeemer

Sacred profane puns, puns, puns

Love to love you, baby

In my head, I’m Marvin Gaye, singing “Let’s Get It On”

To a girl, any girl

In reality, online, looking at her pic

I wonder if she likes or tolerates me

Or if she even knows who Marvin Gaye is

 

15

 

This was going to be a lot shorter and less neurotic

 

16

 

But poetry should kill, poems should kill

In the name of love?

Sure, why not

Or maybe love in the name of killing?

Nah, Manson-esque

Girls, girls, girls

How did Motley Crue get in here?

Well, while they’re here, confession time:

I used to want to grow up to be Slash

Or Sambora, or somebody with long hair and who could play

Guitar

Girls, girls, girls,

They seemed to like those guys when I was growing up

 

17

 

Never mind I don’t like to let my hair grow out,

Nor can I play any instrument

 

18

 

Have I mentioned this was supposed to be shorter?

 

19

 

Like, two pages, tops

 

20

 

            In the grand scheme of things, I can’t complain. I grew up not knowing my father, but my mom did a great job and my grandparents were there to help. I was not neglected, molested, abandoned, or rejected to any significant degree from my family. So how can I be a great writer? I know alcoholism runs in the family, but knowing is half the battle. I have spent time working enough customer service jobs to know I don’t want to work in customer service anymore. I’ve come close but never quite achieved deep and lasting love with a woman. I had acne in middle school. Girls don’t like pizza-faces. I’m still aware of lingering doubts about my ability to attract a mate, in my own mind. I’m funny, which is a help, but sometimes I’m too funny. Women I like might not take me seriously. Online connections are great, but I could go for the real-life ones if I weren’t so shy. Terrified. Convinced I’ll fuck it up somehow.

 

21

 

By the way, notice I switched away from Roman numerals?

 

22

 

Catch-22, Yossarian Lives

 

23

 

A friend of mine said online

The Roman Empire fell because they

Put Christians in charge

I’m tempted to reply that the Goths had more to do with it

So we should keep our eyes on Hot Topic employees

And Robert Smith from The Cure

 

24

 

I have fears that I’m more interesting online

 

25

 

This is where the audience applauds and leaves, satisfied with another great performance onstage