Going Ape...Again

I am considering going to see "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" today, but I think it may have to wait until another day. The star of the movie, James Franco, appeared on Conan's show last night to promote it, and Conan once again proved himself to be my perfect celebrity stand-in. He and I are the same age, and have similar off-beat senses of humor. He confessed that as a child he was heavily into the "Planet of the Apes" films.

"So you were a nerd," Franco said.

"I was a nerd," admitted Conan.

So was I. I owned the action figures. I wore a geeky ape mask for Halloween. (Okay, not just for Halloween. I wore it a lot.) I lived for "Ape Week" on ABC's 4:30 Movie, and would rush home from school each day. Monday: "Planet of the Apes," with Charlton Heston as Taylor, the misanthrope turned Human Freedom Fighter. Tuesday: "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," the cautionary, Cold War tale of humankind's propensity for self-annihilation. Wednesday: "Escape from the Planet of the Apes," the campiest of these campy flicks, which had Cornelius and Zira landing Taylor's repaired spacecraft in 1973 New York. Thursday: "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," the revolutionary ape movie, in which racial politics of the time are mirrored by, and play themselves out via three species of apes: chimps, gorillas and orangutans. On Friday it capped off with "Battle for the Planet of the Apes," in which Caesar and the apes must hold back a human uprising, all the while resisting their own corruption and their growing inter-species "racism."

Tim Burton's 2001 re-boot was fun, and the makeup was an improvement on the 70's series. It was also a return to camp, in a sense; like most Tim Burton films, it never took itself too seriously. This new one employs the use of motion-capture technology and tells a brand new story.

Wow, I just re-read this post. Turns out I'm still an ape nerd. Who knew?

(I did.)

A Silent Prayer for Students and Their Teachers

“ROCK ON,” states the Pepsi banner adorning the little stage at the “Asleep at the Wheel Roadhouse” at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport, where I have become a regular monthly commuter, since taking my job as Education Specialist at Region 13 in January of last year. I feel a great deal of responsibility in this job – to the students in the school I serve, their teachers and principals, not to mention their parents. We send our kids to school every day with a silent prayer, playing it on a loop inside our worried minds: “Please let this be a good experience for them. Please let them learn.”

Schools can really make you sad if you think about them in a certain way. Consider the first day of Kindergarten – all those five year olds come in, nervously clinging to their parents’ pant legs. But there’s also a sense of sheer excitement, of wanting to conquer the unknown, wanting to know new people your own age, wanting to learn new things.

Now consider the first day of teaching. For those of you who have never experienced it, I’ve done my best to describe my own first day in a previous post. In short, it’s that mix of nerves and excitement, just like Kindergarten.

I was fortunate to spend the majority of my educational career (about twelve and a half of the nearly twenty years so far) working in an extraordinary school where we managed to sustain that sense of excitement and nervous, fun energy for years. I’ve realized, in my travels to schools all around New York City and now Texas, that this by no means represents the norm. There are few things more disheartening than being in a school where that sense of joyful excitement has given way to abject boredom and drudgery.

I’m not saying my school was by any means perfect. We had some wonderful teachers and classes, but I wonder if we pushed our students hard enough; I think we could have challenged them more. Academically, I mean. On the social/emotional side of things, we were red hot. When our advisory program was firing on all cylinders, we were a sight to behold. In my next school job – whatever, and whenever, it may be – I’d like to see us use that great caring for our children as a lever with which we can build up the rigor of their intellectual work. It’s tough not to talk about this stuff in platitudes and tired “edu-speak” truisms. We can talk about “engaging” our students with “rigorous” work, but what does that mean? What does it look like?

For me it’s about aspirations and skills. If we can get our students excited about coming to school, get them feeling safe in our building, and get them to trust the adults and each other, then they will begin to share their dreams and vision. As adults, it’s our job to know to know each child, as well as his or her dream. If you’re a good teacher, you nourish that dream, and yes, to anticipate your next question, you nourish even the dreams you may perceive as unlikely – the boy who is 4’11” and 85 pounds who wants to be Lebron James, or the girl who is 5’9” and 200 pounds who wants to be a ballerina. Yes, I know, I know – you’re doing them a favor by helping them be realistic, or so you think.

School is a place where one should be allowed and encouraged to dream. And here’s something that may help you feed those unlikely dreams: If a child feels you’re helping him realize his dreams, he’s much more likely to help you to fulfill yours – namely, to open his mind to the joys of learning.

A Loud and Clamorous Peace

Last Saturday night I headed over to the Flying Saucer at the Triangle and met up with my friends Neil and Stephen. Despite being on antibiotics, and essentially unable to drink any of the many tasty beers they sell there, I was able to enjoy my sodas while chatting with them about a number of things. It was a good, easy time.

At one point a man stopped our waitress and informed her of his wish to send a drink over to the “man in uniform,” a young soldier in full camouflage desert fatigues who sat on one of the sofas by himself, under lamplight, flipping through a book and sipping a pint of beer. He looked so serene sitting there. I wondered how he could concentrate on reading with all the activity swirling around him, until something occurred to me. If he were a combat veteran of one of our two ridiculous wars and not simply an employee stationed at Camp Mabry a couple of miles away, a loud and clamorous peace may be the only kind that makes any sense to one who has seen what this young man is likely to have seen.

To My Younger Self, Discovered in An Old Journal: I Forgive You

Up on the high bookshelf in my home office, there sits an ugly, plaid-bound journal of mine. It has been in my possession since 1982, and it provides a unique embarrassing window into who I was, or more accurately, who I was trying to be at the time.

I’ve alluded to it a couple of times in this blog – once to share a sketch I did, a self portrait that shows me as a long-haired and bearded biker, and the other to transcribe set lists from a couple of amazing rock concerts I saw in the period of one week in the fall of my sophomore year in college.

Recently I thumbed through the 30-year-old diary, and could feel myself blushing. I’m periodically tempted to torch the thing, or feed it, page by page, through the paper shredder.

Lately, however, I’ve tried to distance myself a bit, in order to consider my writing as it was in those days in a different light. When I step outside myself I’m able to see a young man of 19 – still a child, essentially – who is using a blank book in order to gain an understanding of, and become comfortable with, a number of aspects of his life. They are facets that all have one thing in common within his existence; namely, they are all new to him.

Since starting college a year earlier, he has experienced a number of “romantic” encounters, after a relatively sheltered life in that arena up to this point. He writes a lot about these couplings – not pornographically, but keeping a tally (I have decided to write down a list of the year’s infatuations, starting on New Year’s Eve till now.) He writes this on December 31, 1982, recapping his year, writing down the initials of a number of young women. He then attempts to put them in the context of his emotions, which he also grapples with, often to melodramatic effect:

I came to a realization last nite. I don’t think I could ever love M again. (Actually I do love her; I don’t think I could be in love with her again.) I get depressed sometimes, though, just because I am new to all the superficialities that bachelors put up with and perpetuate.In addition, his autobiography consists of overwrought poems and a slew of bad rock and roll songs of his devising – formulaic stuff about sex and partying, with titles like “Too Cool for Chaos,” and “Let’s Go It Again” – giving the impression that he is trying to mask his insecurities about both.

Finally there are ideas for short stories , along with a rough draft of the first one he ever workshops – in an evening class with author Rhoda Lerman at the Extension School. There is some spectacularly bad writing:

The skinny brunette who he had been exchanging darts of the eyes with was now apparently alone, as the tall, Italian-looking fellow slung his coat over one arm and offered the other to a chunky blonde. Her eyes were now fixed on his, and he smiled at her pleasing, dark features.

But I forgive my 19-year-old self; he was doing what I’ve encouraged my own writing students to do over the years. He’s flexing his writing muscles, trying on new vocabulary, making errors with grammar and spelling, and tripping over clichés, all in the service of going for the perfect turn of phrase. His characters are, like the author at that time, introspective and emotionally underdeveloped, but he clearly cares about them and their situations, and there are glimpses of good writing here and there.

Mr. Valentine had made a fortune in the ball bearing business and retired at age fifty. I had never seen him do any type of work, household or otherwise. He just read and watched cultural television. He cooked occasionally, but it didn’t seem like work when he did it. “I shall beckon my daughter,” he said in a mock-Shakespearean voice. “Angela! Your friend David is here!”

It was good enough to prompt Rhoda to tell me, along with my best friend, also in the class, “There are a lot of people trying to write in our workshop. You two are the only writers, as far as I can tell.”

This conversation was a turning point, one that propelled me forward in my wish to be what she perceived me to be. That journey continues to this day, and despite cringing when I read my early writing, I could never burn or shred it. He (that awkward, skinny kid, trying to get comfortable in his own skin) was, and continues in some sense to be, me, after all. And if I could go back, I can honestly say I wouldn’t change a thing.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

This evening I met up with a couple of friends at the Flying Saucer, a beer bar in North Austin, at the Triangle. We had a good time -- I wasn't drinking because of the antibiotics I'm taking for the never-ending sinus issues. We laughed it up for the most part, but there was serious talk, too, about the world, education, and our lives.

Back in my 20's and 30's, most Saturday nights in the summer meant a long evening, sometimes ending at the break of dawn. Lots of subway rides. Many different establishments.

Tonight, I was home by 10:30, and ready to be there. When I lived in Madrid, 10:30 was when Saturday night started.

I'm not stressing about it. In fact, I'm glad.

I believe it's what's known as "age-appropriate behavior."

More Rock and Roll Memories From Bygone Times

Looking through my journal from the fall of my sophomore year in college, 1982, 29 years ago in Syracuse, I found something interesting. Amongst the embarrassing schlock that forms the majority of my entries – a plethora of pseudo-rock star posing – I found two set lists I wrote down from concerts I saw that year.

On September 26, 1982, I went with three friends to Buffalo’s Rich Stadium. We slept in our car in someone’s front yard, paying a small fee to park there. Once inside, we watched the Clash open, and then the Who, a band I idolized at the time. I wrote down their playlist from that day in my journal. They opened at 5:25 p.m. and closed the show after a three-song encore at 7:40.

For you Who fans out there, here it is:

1) Substitute

2) I Can’t Explain

3) Dangerous

4) Sister Disco

5) The Quiet One

6) It’s Hard

7) Eminence Front

8) Behind Blue Eyes

9) Baba O’Reilly

10) I Am One

11) Funk Meets the Godfather

12) Drowned

13) A Man is a Man

14) Cry If You Want

15) Who Are You?

16) Pinball Wizard

17) See Me, Feel Me

18) 5:15

19) Love, Reign O’er Me

20) Long Live Rock

21) Won’t Get Fooled Again

22) Naked Eye (encore)

23) Summertime Blues (encore)

24) Twist and Shout (encore)

It’s going to sound ridiculous for me to say this now, but they don’t make shows like that anymore. Then, a week later, I saw the Clash headline at SUNY Binghamton. They opened at about 9:30 p.m. and played the last of five encore songs at around 11.

For all you Clash-heads, here’s their set list:

1) London Calling

2) Janie Jones

3) Know Your Rights

4) Spanish Bombs

5) The Guns of Brixton

6) Train in Vain

7) Rock the Casbah

8) The Magnificent Seven

9) The Leader

10) Police on My Back

11) English Civil War

12) This is Radio Clash

13) Bankrobber

14) Career Opportunities

15) Should I Stay Or Should I Go

16) Brand New Cadillac

17) Clampdown

18) Armagideon Time (encore)

19) Somebody Got Murdered (encore)

20) I Fought the Law (encore)

21) White Man in Hammersmith Palais (encore)

22) Garageland (encore)

I wish I could write more about either of these experiences, but the truth is, I don’t remember much, for precisely the reasons one might think a 19 year-old young man might forget a rock concert. I’m glad I wrote the set lists down.

The Need to Read

I’ve been trying to read more lately, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I savor the experience of immersing myself in a good, well-written story. As a writer, too, it’s as much like exercising as writing in my journal, or blogging. You cannot be a writer without being a reader. I’ve known that for some time now. Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, it occurs to me that my parents were both readers. My mother was partial to literature – writers like Cheever, Updike and her favorite, John Gardner. She consumed biographies and autobiographies voraciously, and I remember how proud I was to have recommended Toby Wolff’s memoir, This Boy’s Life, which she enjoyed and praised. Her magazine of choice was The New Yorker, known for the high quality of its articles, poems and short fiction. (Not to mention the cartoons, which I grew up reading and doing my best to understand. I think this may have helped the development of an early sense of subtle irony in me.)

My father preferred the spy novel genre. He often read Robert Ludlum and John le Carré, among others. Funny, as I write this it occurs to me that I inherited my mother’s taste in books, and my brother Mike got my father’s. That’s interesting.

At any rate, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I’m more a TV viewer than I am a reader. What I plan to do is start turning off the tube and opening up the Kindle. It will improve my life; I’m absolutely sure of it.