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Tuesday, June 22, 2004
That Blow Out show is just so much a window on the dark and also green human heart.
The owner needs to succeed with every ounce of his anatomy and he is obsessed with that need like no one I have seen ever. That's how Napoleon felt. That is how Gengis Khan saw life. I want. I want. I want. He has only one thing ever on his mind. All that hugging and kissing and so forth and so on....nah. He isn't fillin'it. It's all about manipulation and control. Why do the employees put up with it? Why do they blatantly kiss up both physically and verbally? Because each hair job brings in hundreds of dollars. It is all about money. Are they in any way psychologically attached to him? Nah. If those hair cuts suddenly cost 20-30 dollars, they'd be gone. The owner also is interesting in that he has the heart of the ultimate Jewish shopper; he NEVER SETTLES. Not in the smallest increment. He ALWAYS gets exactly what he wants down to the finest adjustment.
No energy expenditure is too much. No amount of heaping shame on others is too much meanness to do. He is surrounded by an almost visibly throbbing, humming energy field of I want, I want, I want. Imagine if that man cared about anything important. If you had to bet on how many books he and his entire staff have read in their whole lives, what number would you pick? People like that make it tough for school teachers because when you tell Bubba, "You need to be well read or you will be poor," Bubba says, "Yeah? How about those completely illiterate vampires on the Blow Out show, huh?" Not incidentally, are the hair cuts good? No, they are transformingly wonderful. That salon will burst at the seams and become a chain as big as McDonalds because this media exposure lets the whole world see a place where you can go in ordinary and come out looking excellent....for hundreds of dollars plus you have to let a lot of vampires kiss you. That show is one truly interesting bit of reality programing. Finally about the owner I find interesting his antennae. He so fully concentrates on the work place as a whole money-making entity that he has invested his body into the building. He hears and sees through the walls, sinks, and chairs and he knows to the milimeter when something needs fixed and goes right away and deals with it. That is exactly what experienced teachers have about school. I can have a room full of children devoted to rocking the house and I will infallibly hear the one thing said by one child which is trouble waiting to happen and I'm on it immediately. Without that sense, a teacher is a clueless shrieker at everyone, soon ignored by all. In the hairjoint, all that mindless babble and yakkety yak is going on, but the owner hears the one thing said which is going to be trouble and BAM he's got somebody out in the alley telling them the word. How did he hear, how did he see? He's got good antennae. I said, if only that man cared about something important, he'd be an asset to God. I think, though, that he'd be a good lesson to a young person starting out in any endeavor; care that much, try that hard. Just don't be that guy.
Yes, the entire bunch of them remind one of the last days of the Roman Empire, but that whole-souled focus, come shameful stupidity, come botox, come scenes of undead sentiment, flat out eyes on the prize demeanor...it leads to the goal line well before the competition arrives.
Last and ultimate point...1)If you could have your hair LIKE anyone of them, which would you pick?
2) If you could have your hair CUT by anyone of them, which would you pick?
I like the pink hair and if I ever get thin, I am going to have my hair done christmas snow white with rainbow highlights and have it cut about a foot long all over and afroed. Yes, even a heavyweight(HEY!! I'm talking ...er,figuratively here. OK another bad word choice.) philosopher like me can be diverted into the shallows.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
It Didn't Live Up To The Memory
When I went to sleep yesterday, Turner Classic Movies was on with the sound off.
When I woke up, Ninotchka was just coming on. I was very tickled because I saw it once in 1964 and have never forgotten it, wondered if I would feel the same about it now. Back then I thought it so romantic. Also I thought Greta Garbo very beautiful. If I were seeing it for the first time today, I would think nothing much of it or of her, so either I or the times have changed or both. It is considered one of those movie greats like Casablanca. For one thing the acting seems wooden, as though for each emotion the actors had been taught to do one thing in one way to register what they were feeling, with the result that in a movie with a lot of that feeling, they keep doing the same thing in the same way over and over and over and over again. They seem afraid to move their faces. They recite the script quickly and pretty much expressionlessly. Greta Garbo seems to me to be just ordinary looking except for the improbably painted lines where her eyebrows should have been. I thought the story not so much romantic as weird at least on the part of the male lead. He kept sucking the oxygen out of the air, so much so that it was a wonder Greta Garbo could breathe. She got no personal space whatsoever. At one point I actually thought he sat on her as they were side by side on a large sofa. Perhaps the director was yelling at him to move closer. In the kissing scenes each time, he grabbed her shoulders and sort of chubbed her up and then resolutely chomped onto her like you would take on a too fat sandwich, all with his shoulders up around his ears.
This viewing, the best parts were about Russia. Back in Moscow Ninotchka is having friends for dinner. Someone asks what she will serve. She says, "Omelet." The friends arrive and each takes a carefully wrapped egg from his pocket, except for one whose egg broke in transit. The friends say how beautiful is the room where Ninotchka lives and ask how many people live there. When she says 3, they are shocked at such privilege. Now and then everyone in the building walks through her room on the way to the bathroom and then back out. The hair style of everyone in the film was awful beyond hope. The male lead's hair was greased so tightly to his head it looked like high gloss paint; then there was the silly Hitler moustache. The hair style of the French fashion maven opposing Ninotchka...that was even worse..shockingly so. It was what you might do to baby hair if you were really trying to dude up the baby. The script is both clever and witty. I see it was written by Billy Wilder. So, I was disappointed pretty much. It did not live up to the memory.
Hiding Out
Back at school, this year's last report card is a death march. This morning, five days into vacation, I got a call asking for my password because grades still are not right and there has been neither printout nor distribution. Teachers actually had to go back and redo their grades because in a trial grade export, all the students failed. The fix goes on.
1) There is nothing from which to redo grades. They were all entered into the problem program, no hard copy. Any "redo' would mean teachers inventing grades off the tops of their heads.
2) Last Wednesday A.M. the assistant principal and the technology office secretary called me numerous times to hurry me up. My grades had been finished as of Monday except for the last hour where grades had to be entered for the first three quarters. When finished with that I called the sectretary. She accessed my grades using my password and said everything was there and in order, "You're ready to export. I'll do it for you so there's no screw up. We can't afford last minute mistakes." The final export is different so I was glad that she wanted to do mine. The point here being that my grades were checked and actually exported by the one person who knows and teaches the grade program.
Twice after that the assistant principal called me to say that the secretary needed me to go down to her office again because...first time...she needed me to finish entering data, and...second time...she needed my password. I called the secretary to see if she actually wanted me to go down to her office. She said, "No. I don't need you to enter data. It's all done. And I have your password right here in from of me written on my desk calendar." I asked, "So you're sure I'm finished?" She said, "Yes, the principal mixed you up with other teachers still entering grades."
That was last Wednesday. As of this morning, Monday, the assistant principal continues to struggle. Maybe someone made a mistake holding up the entire process, but if not, what? All I can imagine is sabotage. Hackers damage systems around the world, although why anyone would want to pick on our little school district is a mystery.
Anyway...I think I'll go the Mars and hide until this snafu blows over.
Sunday, June 20, 2004
The War Next Door
Mood:
 incredulous
One feature of life in a town house is unavoidable acquaintance with each detail of neighbors' lives. Last fall a young girl moved in next door. Within a week, a young man joined her and he has never left the place, unless she drives him somewhere. He's just over there watching TV around the clock. Soon they began to host loud paries lasting all night. Clearly a lot of alcohol was going on; the clumsy crashing around and, "OOPS!", slurred and overly loud speech, extremely foul language, stupidly begun fights terminating in stupidly elaborate apologies, shrieks of laughter, roars and screams of rage, stomping around, chasing up and down both flights of stairs from basement to second floor, on and on and on and on all night long. With each party the bar was lowered a bit. More guests, more noise, more anger, crashing and fighting. With the party exploding four inches from my head I had no choice about listening. Neighbors began to call the police who were there so often they might as well have left a toothbrush.
I did written complaints to the townhouse management. Soon between the police reports and my complaints, management had enough grounds for an eviction meeting which I attended and freely and frankly revealed all. Management told the girl she had to go unless she promised to be a quiet tenant in future. She promised. Things have been much quieter ...until the last two weeks. We are back to the War Next Door. Oy. The screaming and raging and roaring and crashing.
The worst party last fall ended in the girl screaming wildly that she was going to abort her baby with a coat hook and she wanted everyone to go upstairs into the bathroom with her to assist in the operation. Among other crazy drunken outbursts, she alleged to have already had ten abortions. She did not want the baby because the boy next door wasn't good father material since his only job was selling drugs out of the house. Well, now the recent fights...the boy is doing a lot of roaring and slamming things around. The girl is doing a lot of screaming. They just had another huge bust-up. The boy left, slamming their door so hard it shook my house too.
He stomped off about a block away yelling and waving his hands. Then he stopped, slapped his forehead, went back and slammed out again, only this time he had a handfull of bills. Soon she, too, left driving her van. I haven't seen her lately so the change was noticeable. She has to be nine months pregnant. Guess the coat hook abortion didn't happen and soon I will have another cheery little neighbor to enjoy.
Saturday, June 19, 2004
Vegetation Situation
Given that the month of May, and now again the month of June have neighbors chatting about how it might not be a waste to start an Ark, also given high temps and humidity, my back yard though small is a jungle. It was cut back to zero two weeks ago and is now over waist high, a wall of vegetation. Either I must buy a sheep or resurrect the clippers and get going. I seem to have already read my whole big fat sack of grocery store books. Might as well get out there and try to find the dirt.
Hi, ho,
Hi, ho,
I have to go,
And mow.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Grocery Store Book Orgy
I have tooled up for my first weekend as a retired person by getting a big fat sack full of grocery store books. As a little kid I was very high-minded, read WORKS OF LITERATURE, just pounded through authors like Milton and Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy and Dickens...et al. Why? I liked to read and that was all I had. A pair of wealthy literature-lovers gave me their entire library when they both became blind. I read it ...all of it...even practically paralytic stuff like Bacon's Essays. The time for me to take courses in English literature was when I was 10-12 years old and soaking up all that worthy verbiage.
That was then and this is now. Now I read grocery store books. I just love a 500 p. book that says on the cover..."had to read it in one sitting"...hahahahahaa! Who reads that fast? I DO!!
One weekend I read 7 books like that. I like books where a lot happens. I don't like books where the characters keep taking their own emotional temperature, keep checking their feelings for boo-boos. I don't like romances. I like improbably insane adventures. I don't like books where I have to keep standing the author in the corner for being a potty mouth. I like books where I'm either terrified or laughing and sometimes both at once.
So, how would a person like me celebrate retirement? With a big pile of low brow literature.
Just finished the first. I highly recommend it!
Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. Never heard of her before this book, but it is great.
It is how social studies should be but never is, fabulous historical narrative. It is one of those 500 page books I read in one gulp. Here is the ultimate accolade; it is the kind of book that when you have to go to the bathroom/answer the door/ get some Vernors, you read on the way, while there, and on the return, not noticing surroundings. On to the next book!!
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Pimped My Ride
Mood:
 mischievious
A couple of months ago a telemarketer called here offering to highgloss polish my car so it will stay shiny for several years...at a cost less than going to the car wash for a while. Since I haven't even ever washed the Honda, I thought that was a fair deal and said yes. Today was the day. I was up at 4:00 A.M. and driving into the crackiest part of the inner city to this place that pimps people's rides. It was a busy place working on Hummers and other expensive SUV's, the kind of place that puts neon lights under the edge of your running boards, britegold bumpers front and back, tiny scampering Christmas lights around the license plate...stuff like that. They also install car alarm systems from a company called Viper and all the employees wore shirts with shocking snakes on the front. Not really a Honda Accord kind of place. Actually not a place for a little old retired schoolteacher from the suburbs. Now that was a unique waiting room experience. I'm still alive and I did push my luck. I was there for two hours. Decided I was NOT going to watch raunchy cable shows on the TV up in the corner. So I got chatty, made everybody talk, on and on quacking and yakking. I thought, "Mrs. Pollifax Gabs in the Ghetto." Was I secretly intimidated? Yes I was, quite a bit. Getting into the car to come home, I suddenly felt too tired to drive, just filletted and I'm feeling it now. My first adventure as a retired person. How does the car look? Very shiny. I wonder how it would look with pink neon underlights.
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