14 Years of Good Morning and Class Dismissed, part 2

   With one year of teaching on my belt, I was ready to tackle a new year. Well, almost ready. The strange thing about a year-round school format is, we end one year in early August and start a new one a few weeks later. The body and spirit do not quite have a true chance to regroup. In my case, there were 2 things happening that set the 2003-04 year on a bad footing.

   The first was my apartment having a leaky water heater. It got my floor pretty wet, as well as attracting flies. I'd been there only a year and already there were problems.

   The second was a bit bigger. I'd had a sort-of regular thing going with a woman named Treasa for several months. Right before the new year began, she got engaged to another person. Not that I had expected the relationship to get to that point, but it was still a crusher. Timing can really suck!

   The result of both those events was my lack of psyched up first-day, actually first week, energy.  However, it came back, and I had a pretty good class. The standout student was an energetic little guy named Christian, who happened to be Treasa's nephew. He reminded me a lot of me at that age...therefore he drove me nuts at times.

   That year we were finally using a basal reading series and were quite excited over the implementation of it. The 1st grade team was also sent offsite to a literacy training once a week. That was fine, except that if a sub didn't take the class, we were called back to school. Former 3rd grade teacher Heidi  had joined our team and was a welcome cheery addition, while Christy  moved to Kindergarten. Jennifer P became Jennifer O in September. I attended the wedding with Treasa as my date, but just as friends. Apart from all that, the year went about as usual, which meant utter chaos at all times. I also tutored a couple days a week after school, which brought a little more money.

   I kept attending the Friday happy hours, although they came less frequently that year. On one of them I caught sight of 2 co-workers passionately kissing as I headed for my car. 12 years later, it's still an image hard to shake, but those were strange times.

   Also in this year, I switched to a new track, which meant different vacay sets. The best one was the first, which lasted pretty much all of November. After another dismal parent conference turnout and another whipped-cream intensive pie-throwing booth, I set out for California. First Santa Rosa, then down to San Diego. I was actually away for most of the break.

   It is tough to say what made this year so memorable...probably it was not so much the in-class business as my free time dating. I met several women that year...many of them were 1-time dates, others were a bit longer. One in particular was Gigi, whom I was "steady" with for the first few months of 2004, to use a 50s term. Another briefer one was named Indy in November of 2003. Both of them couldn't quite get why I couldn't get more into the relationships. I was just trying to enjoy life outside of work for a change.

   Another distraction was going to the gym a few times a week. Earlier in the year I saw the girth and needed to get it down. I had a trainer and that kept me in check. By Christmas, I was looking pretty good.

   However, the myriad of women that I met that year was taking its toll on my sense of self-worth. I was 31 and having much more experience with women than I ever did in Santa Rosa. The time between dates was filled with a lot of lonely evenings at home. A pressure was building by summertime.

   The year's end was more positive than the beginning. I was really sad to lose that group, but was even more troubled by another event. Our principal Teddy was making changes here and there and decided to move me from 1st to 5th grade. While I observed a few teachers in 5th, it still didn't prepare me for what was coming.

14 years of Good Morning...and class dismissed, part 1

14 years is quite s stretch for many teachers. Some stay longer, many drop out before they even get a foothold in the classroom. As for me, I think I've been born, died, and reborn more than twice. There are times when I am not sure what has kept me going all this time. When I scrape away all of the crap outside of the classroom, it is truly the kids that keep me going, particularly in the past 4 years. Other times, well, the survival instinct kicked in.

I've been wanting to write about this for a while, a big look at each year as I saw them. I really wanted to do it at the end of year 10, but that was another rebirth period, not a time to look back. I am actually going through a minor rebirth right now, but this one did not come from traumatic events, just a natural progression. Yeah yeah yeah, save it for Dr. Phil, Bry! Presenting, for your glaucomic pleasure....2002-14: A Masochist's Journey!

Part 1: 2002-03

What can one say about their first year of teaching? For me, as I suspect for others, it was not anywhere near what I'd gone to an extra 12 months of school for. I'd moved away from Santa Rosa to work in Las Vegas at a 12-month school. I'd spent a week and a half getting to know my way around before the trial by fire began. A three-day orientation for the billions of new recruits followed by a few days at my new school, Tom Williams Elementary in North Las Vegas. I was assigned to first grade.

I barely remember anything. I met some really nice people, some royal ass goblins, and just wanted an "Idiot's Guide to Teaching" if such a book existed. I really only had 4 days to get my classroom in some semblance of working order. Incidentally, this classroom was only qualified for that title in that it had desks and a white board for instruction. Other than that, it was a badly-painted piece of narrow hell, no space really for movement. I had been given a multi-book instruction guide for something called Investigations, something no plebe should be exposed to, at least not until a minimal basic comfort level in the classroom has been reached. Really, I spent 4 days putting whatever together just to give the kids a good show. I'd been given a HUGE binder only slightly thinner than the New York City Yellow Pages, giving all the learning standards for all grade levels. I had no idea where to begin. There were no textbooks for anything, really.

Tom Williams Elementary was an outdoor school, meaning all classrooms were accessed from the outside. I'd seen similar setups during my subbing days in Sonoma County, but somehow the concept made no sense in blazing-hot southern Nevada.My broom closet was connected to another on the inside. That teacher was Jennifer P., a friendly younger teacher willing to answer my questions and quelling my nervousness as best as she could. We had quite a motley crew on the 1st grade team. Down the row was Madlyn , a nice Canadian also new to Nevada, although she had experience. Further down was Scott , a good guy who I had for needed guy talk as it arose. Then there was Christy . I was unsure of what to make of her at first. She was friendly, yet kind of reserved. I figured that she'd seen many newbies come and go, how was I any different? There was also Kathleen , a sweet older teacher who worried quite a bit. Halie  was another new teacher. Her cheerful take on things was always welcome. And then there was Beth , a nice teacher who gave me good practical lesson tips. All in all, I was happy to have these people in my new life.

Then there was our administration. Linda the principal was a peculiar one. I was grateful to her for hiring me at her school, but I was seeing some interesting personality quirks that were, for lack of a better word, unsettling. There was also the new assistant principal Kristie, a petite blonde Barbie doll-type was just just oh-so happy to be there. Either she'd do well or crash soon, it was hard to tell.

The year commenced. I had a nice first-year set of kids and I did the best I could with little to no materials, and it wasn't too bad. I also elected to take a course after-hours called Project LIFE, a language arts set of ideas for the younger grades. It was taught by Christy. I got a lot out of it, but I would have gotten a lot out of a cockroach if it had given any teaching advice that year.  Within a few weeks, I was already on my first vacation! Really! Almost 3 weeks of freedom! I traveled back to Sonoma County to collect a few things I'd forgotten, drove down the coast through Big Sur, spent a few days in San Diego, and then back to work in early October.

Before I knew it, October's end had arrived. Coinciding with this was parent-teacher conference time. Of my 16 kids, only 4 parents came. This was to be my lesson in parent involvement in those parts. There was also the school carnival, where I participated in the pie-throwing contest and the dunking booth. And then there was Nevada Day, a day off on the last weekend of October. I took that opportunity to visit my grandma and her husband in the Phoenix area.

Already after 2 months I'd learned three things. First, I really enjoyed Friday happy hour with the crew. Tom Williams prompted drinking often. At these gatherings were Scott, sometimes Christy, Jennifer M., an obnoxious twit I grew to dislike; Nikea, a pretty chain-smoker who needed a bug removed from her ass, Leslye, a strange woman with a strange husband; Richard, a nice guy old enough to be my dad. I credit him for showing me how to make simplified lesson plans. Second, I learned that one cannot do much on a 2-paper ream allowance using broken-down copiers. The other thing was that there was quite the network of school spies operating to tell the boss anything and everything the teachers were doing. It's tough being a newbie and learning the nonofficial intricacies of professional life.

In December, we learned that Linda was leaving. Either voluntarily or forced out, I've never been 100% clear on that. She was allowed to take several of her spy network with her. What got me was that the people who wanted to be selected but were not were devastated. I guess I was too new to understand anything, but years down the road I'd see some ugly truths about many people who were left behind.

Before Christmas break, I played Santa Claus for most of the day. It was fun, but what stands out is having the bushy eyebrows rubber cemented on my forehead. That burned quite a bit!

Come January, we had a new boss named Teddy. She came along with bad news: No Child Left Behind was upon us and we were near rock bottom. I could only shrug, as I'd only been there a short time, nothing to stress about yet. However, a lot of other teachers like Jennifer M were now under the gun and had to start doing their jobs a lot more. What I liked about Teddy was that she got me some decent math materials. To me, the year was going a lot more smoothly. I was also getting to know Vegas better and began to look into the dating world.

By the third track break in May, I was feeling much better than in the fall. A good routine was forming. I was also chaperoning on the 4th grade trip to Ely. I discovered that Ely gets snow in May and I was severely underdressed. That last track break made for a really long summer. June and July made me grateful for a well-air-conditioned classroom closet.

The last day of school in early August was sad. It was a half day and the kids were tearful as dismissal time came. I was sad, too. They were a good group. Overall, I have to concede that the first year was one full of learnings, realizations, and reality checks. It really shone compared to the following year. Coming soon: part 2: 2003-04

2015 in retrospect

   If I had a word for 2015, it's meh....well actually meh minus. It wasn't terrific by any means, but it was not completely horrible, either. There was terrific points in late summer and late autumn, come to think of it!

   The first part of the year started off pretty well. At work I was hammering away on a script for the literacy night play as well as producing, directing, and emceeing the final Marvin & Jessie assembly for the year. On top of that  I was also doing the televised morning news announcements. LIfe was quite busy and good. Come late March, during Spring Break, we took a nice trip up to Utah for what would be our final regular visit with Vickie's dad Alan.

   When we got to see him, we took Alan to Village Inn for breakfast. He ordered the biggest and most expensive breakfast there, the chicken fried steak! I didn't care, it was probably the biggest meal he'd had in a long time and he scarfed that baby up!

   Had we known then what was going to happen later, we would have just packed some of this things and brought him home with us.

   Later ended up being less than a week after that breakfast. The following Saturday he had fallen and hurt his head badly. A nurse came to check him and merely gave him some ice instead of recommending a scan or some sort of concerted medical effort. Two days later, he had another fall and was admitted to the hospital with a subdural hematoma. Vickie grabbed a ride with her brother and family to see him the next day.

   This will sound strange, but that was the first time I'd been without Vickie since the night before our wedding. It was rough at first. She came back 2 days later, but went up again 3 days after that to help her dad get into his new nursing home. This time it was a bit easier. She came back on Tuesday... but then we heard on Thursday that Alan was unresponsive and was admitted to the hopsital.

   We went up late that same night to Salt Lake with parental emergency funds. We stayed at a Super 8  for 4 nights while going to the hospital during the day. Vickie would spend long periods of time with her father while Natalie and I hung out in the waiting room. I actually made substitute lesson plans on a waiting room computer standing up!

   On Monday, Vickie made what may have been the toughest decision of her life. As Alan had been going in and out of a-fib with his heart and had been largely unresponsive, the quality of his life was not getting any better, so she chose to take him off of life support. He was moved to the palliative care ward, and as our hotel stay had expired, we stayed in the room with him for two nights, very tough nights at that.

   On Wednesday, we arranged to have him taken to a hospice home that afternoon. After he was moved in, we went for a quick bite to eat. While at the restaurant, Natalie had a quick bout of nausea and threw up at 6:15p.m. Minutes later as we got into the car, Vickie got the call...Alan had passed at 6:15. We got back as quickly as we could and waited as the funeral home people took care of him. We found a motel for the night, then headed for the funeral home in the morning.

   The funeral home itself was not too bad, and the director helping us was very pleasant and made things easier. He even agreed to put a bottle of Pepsi in with Alan as he was transported to Missouri. We headed home soon after, and I managed to teach for two days the following week before we headed to northwestern Missouri for the funeral.

   We stayed at a truck stop in Eagleville off of I-35 for 5 nights. In that time, we made arrangements for a coffin and a gravesite. Natalie also practiced singing "Amazing Grace" for the funeral. We spent our ultra-free time vising different cemeteries to find where some of Vickie's family, including her paternal grandparents and Aunt, were interred. We also drove around the area and found that northern Missouri is quite hilly on the local roads, therefore fun to drive. The Iowa state line was close, so we ventured there twice. We also let Natalie play at a park or 2, and she got to experience what I consider REAL playground equipment.

   On Saturday there was a viewing, which ended up being the 3 of us and Vickie's half sister who came in from Texas. The funeral home people graciously arranged for a CD player to be at the funeral the next day. At the funeral itself, I read a eulogy that I'd prepared and Natalie did a very nice job singing "Amazing Grace" along with Leann Rimes.

  








   We went home the day after that. It was rough for a while for Vickie, still is in many ways. There was less than a month of school left, including Field Day where I ended the day feeling sick, making the holiday weekend a royal bummer.

   A week and a half after that, the school year was over. Almost immediately, I got started on taking my license renewal classes. This actually made for a fun summer as my mind was active. I took a class on online/blended learning, an easy-peasy Powerpoint class, both online. I also went to a class for 3 days learning how to be a "champion teacher", which was helpful. In late July I began a class on early stages of writing.

   Vacation-wise, we took a short jaunt to Laughlin for a dinner cruise on the Colorado River in June, then a week-long trip to Tennessee to spend time with Vickie's friend Marilyn. That was one of the best weeks I can remember!

   Before we knew it, the time for school had begun. We took a very brief trip to Houston in September for a cousin's wedding, where I met some really nice people. I also had one more class to take, this one being about creating centers.

   By late October, I was burnt out. Lots had happened in the course of 7 months. Vickie went on a Carnival cruise with some of her family form Halloween to November 4. Two of those days were staff development days and I had to take them off since I couldn't find a babysitter for Natalie. My Dad and his wife came for Thanksgiving and soon after I celebrated my 43rd birthday.

   December brought something new for me. As I'd been getting more involved with school district issues, I met some new people also involved in that online, and met some in-person when I attended a rally. These people are highly motivated and I hope I meet more like them in the coming year.

   Christmas break was long overdue and it has really helped to re-energize me. It has also helped me to realize that I've been pretty down on myself for a long time. The school year has not been spectacular, although I have a great group of kids. I no longer do the news due to the assistant principal making changes to that program...in fact the school itself has felt very dark and lifeless, and that can be a consuming thing...I've let the dark spirit consume me., and that's not healthy. I've also been paranoid about other coworkers, another piece of dark spirit. This break has helped to clear those cobwebs.

   Here is hoping that the next year brings more Moore happiness!

Confidentially Speaking

What? My blog hasn't had an entry in a while? Well, fear not, because it is time for...you guessed it... a book review! Who knows, perhaps all of these book review posts will be compiled for immediate inclusion in a used bookstore's bargain bin!

Today's featured story is another long one...sitting at 497 pages is James Ellroy's classic "L.A. Confidential". This is another thick piece of pulp made into a movie years later, and the movie was quite good, starring Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Spacey. OK, we all (meaning I) know how this goes...I give a character profile, a major spoiler alert, followed by movie-book comparison/contrasts.

Characters
Edmond Exley: He is an accidental World War 2 hero, making his way up the ranks in the LAPD. He feels he has much to prove, and will do anything to get where he wants. By the book's end, he is a cold-hearted cop who has lost much to attain his goals.

Wendell "Bud" White: He is a brutal detective who has a penchant for defending female victims of abuse. He holds a grudge against Exley for the majority of the book. He is duped into doing what his superior officer Dudley Smith wants for years.

Jack Vincennes: He is an alcoholic and a narcotics cop who is also a technical adviser on the TV show "Badge of Honor". He has a years-old demon hanging over him, which threatens his career and marriage.

Sid Hudgens: He is a sleazy reporter for the L.A. tabloid "Hush Hush", and loves to catch celebrities doing illegal drugs for a story. He and Jack Vincennes have a business relationship, and he holds a secret Jack wishes he did not.

Dudley Smith: A cold, calculating Irish lieutenant, then captain. He is the brains behind much of the sordid activity in the book and has a crew of loyal lapdog cops working under him.

Pierce Patchett: He is a rich, influential pimp and chemist. He runs a call girl service called Fleur di Lis and is also in league with Sid Hudgens in the blackmail department.

Ray Dieterling: He is a Walt Disney caricature who carries many dark secrets, one of which is a running back story which unfolds at the end.

Preston Exley: Edmond's father, a self righteous cop turned architect. He also has a dark secret which costs him at the book's end.

***SPOILER***

The book opens with a short scene in 1950 of an ex-cop named Buzz Meeks hiding in a San Berdoo (Bernardino)  motel with an extensive amount of heroin. He is immediately hunted down by Dudley Smith and his crew and killed by Dudley himself.

The book then moves into Christmas 1951.Several Mexican men are booked for assault on 2 cops. Several cops, having imbibed in liquor brought into the station that night and led by Bud White's brutal and drunk partner Dick Stensland, go to the jail cells to beat on the Mexicans. Exley is the deputy watch commander. but has no control over the men and is locked in the supply room by one of them. Bud tried to stop his partner but is provoked by the Mexicans into throwing some vicious punches himself. Jack Vincennes also tries to garner some control, but fails and also throws a punch.

The ambush gets quite an exposure in the papers. Ed Exley uses the opportunity to advance his career by snitching on the violent cops.  Bud White and Dick Stensland are thrown off the force, and Jack agrees to corroborate Exley's testimony and serve on administrative vice as his wrist slap. Exley is promoted to lieutenant, but gets small cases and is shunned by his fellow officers as a snitch, Bud White is reinstated by Dudley Smith to permanently serve under him. One night, White and Stensland in disguise beat on Exley in a parking lot. Exley later gets the goods on Stensland for parole violation and has him arrested.

Soon thereafter, Ellis Loew is elected as district attorney with help from Jack Vincennes who not only introduced him to the woman he'd marry, but also worked with Sid Hudgens to permanently smear his opponent.

In 1953, the Nite Owl Diner has a major shooting and the victims of note are San Berdoo native Susan Lefferts, ex-cop Mal Lunceford, and pimp wannabe Duke Cathcart. It is reported that three black men were seen in a purple Mercury fleeing the scene. Some men are arrested on leads, and Exley interrogates them, finding out they abducted a girl. Bud White watches and then storms in, demanding an address. He rushes to it, finding a raped and beaten woman, Inez Soto, tied up in one room.  Bud finds one of her captors in the next room and shoots him. Inez refuses to talk to the police, she just wants the "putos" to suffer. Ed Exley tries to be kind to her, but she taunts him with Bud White's bravado. Exley finds the men after they escaped from jail and shoots them all and is lauded a hero.

In the interim afterward, Sid Hudgens is killed, Jack Vincennes goes to find Sid's secret files but finds nothing. He soon meets up with Pierce Patchett's underlings Lynn  Bracken and Lamar Hinton who have stolen Sid's files form the bank. The files indeed contain dirt on him and an accidental 1947 double shooting of 2 innocent people, but Pierce Patchett owns the carbons.

A paroled Dick Stensland partakes in an armed robbery and commits murder in the process. He is arrested, sentenced, and executed in the gas chamber.

Inez Soto, who formed a brief relationship with Ed following his shooting of her rapists, is sleeping with other men, particularly Bud White and is also working for theme park creator Ray Dieterling. She and Ed soon break up.

The scandal papers soon question the validity of the Nite Owl murders following testimony from a prison inmate who knew the 3 men Ed shot. An extensive re-investigation begins. Ed forms an alliance with Jack and an uneasy one with Bud., as Bud still wants to ruin Ed over Stensland's ruination and execution.

In the extensive investigation, Internal Affairs head Ed Exley finds out that the real Nite Owl shooters were former Mickey Cohen hoods Abe Tetelbaum, Johnny Stompanato, and Lee Vachss, along with driver Deuce Perkins in order to take over Pierce Patchett's smut empire. Sid Hudgens's killer was Ray Dieterling's insane illegitimate son David Mertens, over a complicated plot involving Mertens's torturing and killing of a child 18 years previously. He was never arrested, as another named Loren Atherton was falsely arrested by Preston Exley and later executed. Preston Exley also killed Dieterling's other son who looked exactly like David and who was hated by Ray. Ed confronts his father and Dieterling over the cover-up and the 2 older men commit suicide.

In the end, Ed, Jack, and Bud engage in a shootout with Lee Vachss and Abe Tetelbaum, killing them both. While Ed seeks David Mertens, Jack and Bud intercept a train full of convicts containing the men who tried to kill Mickey Cohen in prison. Jack is killed and Bud is severely wounded before killing Deuce Perkins.

In the end, Bud and his love Lynn Bracken head to Arizona so he can recover (although he will never be a cop again) and Ed vows to nail Dudley Smith, the mastermind behind the Nite Owl.

***SPOILER END***

Overall, the book is much more extensive than that brief spoiler, and involves some detailed and pretty sick smut descriptions. It gives the idea that 1950s L.A. is one big place full of crime and filth.  My favorite character of all the main ones is Jack Vincennes, a sad man haunted by a bad mistake who is trying to make his life better and ends up dying in his valiant call to duty.

Movie comparison/contrast

The movie focuses mainly on Bloody Christmas and the Nite Owl, and most of the smut angle is not present. Completely missing is the story involving Ed's father and Ray Dieterling. Plus, in the movie Dudley Smith is killed by Ed. IN the book, Jack gets married to a younger girl who goes from enamored to disillusioned. In the movie, he remains single..

One big similarity is Bud's hatred of Ed because of Stensland's downfall (in the movie Stensland is killed at the Nite Owl). In the book, Bud comes around during the shooting at the diner, while in the movie he and Ed join forces when they realize who the real bad guy is.

The book contained a large population of gay characters and pedophiles, something almost completely missing in the film. In the end, I say keep with the book, you will be more satisfied.

Sequel King at His Throne

   I've decided to take a side job. I could use the diversion, after all. Sure, I could recreate lesson plans and copy materials into the dead of night, but ripping my toenail cuticles off sounds more entertaining.

   So I've decided to make myself in charge of all movie sequels. I've sent out resumes to all of the studios and have heard from all of them. Granted, they all offered to shove a boom mike up my shorts, but this is merely a salary negotiating ploy.

   You may be asking, "What makes you qualified to be in charge of deciding on movie sequels to be made?" Well, I recently caught Anchorman 2...and from what my college- and NY Times Crossword-trained mind could gather, an ocelot approved that idea.And if an ocelot can make those decisions, I can too...er, let's move on!

   The first strategy to consider is, what movies should be greenlit for a high-budget sequel and/or remake? I think the perfect example here is "Meatballs", a 1979 Canadian "feel-good" camp comedy featuring a high-on-his-keister-from-SNL Bill Murray. In fact, his mere presence was the only thing keeping our VCR from exploding when I rented it back in 1986 from the local video store. From my subsequent research after the rental, I gathered 2 facts.

1. The lone copy I rented proceeded to gather dust until it either was taken off or "accidentally" made it into the curtained-off porn section.

2. The original spawned 3, count them, 3 sequels, most of which haven't been seen by anybody outside the screening room.

   So what, then, makes a film sequel-worthy? From what I can see, earnings are the bottom line, pure and simple. The movie moguls don't appear to research their audience. For all they know, a bunch of drunk college football players attended "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" but they couldn't remember any of it later, much less the theater they randomly chose to puke in. It doesn't matter, ticket sales are ticket sales, so the moguls approved "Big Top Pee Wee", another cassette that got into the curtained porn section.

   I think the same general strategy goes for remakes. Take Spider Man, for example, a highly successful trilogy starring Tobey Maguire as Marvel Comics's favorite web-slinging nerd. Five years after the third installment, "The Amazing Spider Man" was released! Why? Money! The first trilogy was a hit, so why not remake the 2002 hit with a new cast and angle? Same with the Incredible Hulk...one in 2003 and another complete remake 5 years later, as if the original had never been made.

   I can picture it now, I'm sitting on my Sequel Master Throne....yes THAT throne, where else can sequels be approved? I'm on a conference call with 2 of my associates.

Me: OK, what do you have for me today? (subsequent grunt)
Associate 2: We have lots of ideas for you.
Associate 1: Wait, you took my line!
Associate 2: I'm bucking for your spot.
Me: (grunting more) I don't pay you for arguing.
Associate 1: You don't pay us at all! We're interns.
Me: Oh yes . (a fine movement happens at last)Ahhh, nice! Proceed.
Associate 2: First up is "Ferris Bueller's Son's Week Off".
Me: (grunting again). Damn that Hormel!
Associate 1: Pardon sir?
Me: I meant, the original Ferris Bueller was 30 years ago. Is Broderick up for this?
Associate 2: Well...
Associate 1: We have no knowledge of anyone named Broderick.
Me: So who's playing Ferris Bueller?
Associate 2: Jason Biggs is our top pick, going by "American Pie" grosses.
Associate 1: I thought it was Jason Priestly based on "Tombstone" grosses.
Me: (following a loud plop): Denied. Next!
Associate 1 or 2: Remember "Swamp Anchorman" last year?
Me: (grunting big time) Like a Del Taco cheeseburger, why?
1 or 2: It grossed $52.67 above the total cost.
Me: (huge movement happening)Yeah baby!
1: Cool isn't it?
Me: What? Oh, yeah, right, the movie. What was it's final cost?
2: $15,000
Me: It was at theatres?
1: Good one, sir. No, anything with Steven Seagal is now straight to Netflix.
2: And Seagal pretty much works for Slurpees now.
Me: And he wants to do a sequel?
2: What can we say? Slurpees rock.
Me: If he agrees to one kid size a day, let's set the budget at $5,000
1 or 2: He also wants a Slim Jim per week.
Me: No! Who does he think this studio is? These damn celebrities think they own the world! We have to draw the line somewhere.
1 and 2: You rock, boss!
Me: Grunt!!
1 and 2: You grunt, boss!

   Well, judging from that possible scenario, I think we can make some decent, simple, and hopefully unseen sequels. That way I won't get sued for puke in the theatre lobby.

And a goal full of jelly

   It's October at the workplace. That means the smell of pumpkin latte farts! It means September the dreaded first month is now done. It means it is cooling off (southwesterners, this does not apply to you). It means it is the time for....goal-setting!

   What? Yes, you heard me, it is goal-setting time. This is the time of year when we teachers are supposed to set goals to attain during the year. We've been doing it this way for 2 or 3 years now. Basically what happens is, we as teachers are supposed to decide what we want to accomplish for the year. Well, when you think about it our goals are simple

1. Stay out of rehab until mid June
2. Keep from calling strategic air strikes on parents who don't respond to our calls and emails regarding their kids' futures as fry salters.
3.  Either get the salaries to just below the tax hike line or below the food stamps limit, either will work.

   Now I'm not getting into the salary debate, it is a no-win. However, if you want to pay babysitting wages,  $10 per hour per kid, I think you'll find that hiking us up the salary food chain is quite reasonable after all.

   Anyhow, we are not allowed such realistic goals. Instead, a transmission sent from Krypton, just after it jettisoned Superman, landed on Earth last year with a whole set of "attainable and measurable goals". This pretty much means more work for us as we decide what we can attain and measure in 6 months when we meet with the boss to see what was attained and measured. It's not like the old days when our goals were determined for us. My goals were pretty straightforward:

1. Bryan's toenail clippings shall land no more than 5 inches from the trash can.
2. Bryan shall remember that he is a (barely) licensed professional and not come to the workplace with mustard stains on his forehead.
3. Bryan will strive to directly teach his students at least for 20 minutes a week using district-approved materials at least in the morning.
4. Bryan shall refrain from psychological torture by exposing the students to goofy Stan Freberg comedy bits.

    No, seriously, the real goals were attainable and occasionally measured. The problem was, they were often measured at "off" moments. My first few years as a teacher probably had more off moments than a dead cell phone. Face it, teaching is not a profession that a "Dummies" book can help one master, although between 2002-2005 I probably could have used one.

   The California college system had some strange methods of teaching the educators-to-be. Instead of practical advice and knowledge that would help us to immediately know what to do upon signing our first W-4 forms as teachers, they strove to make us independent thinkers, to "think outside the box" in order to be stellar teachers who would rise to fame and receive international acclaim as universal geniuses at teaching 50 different ways to add 2+3.

   The problem here is that those methods turn the brain into a bowl of moldy currant jelly. We attended these classes at night, many of us working jobs in the daytime as well. Our brains were already jelly-like in terms of the high carb counts needed to keep us awake past 7! What we needed were classes such as:
Ed 101: Staying out of rehab until mid June
Ed 102: Planning field trips to Nolde Forest for most of the elementary years  and not make them seem like retreads
Ed 103: How to become a fun yet useful teacher the kids will remember
Ed 104 How to make watching "The Electric Company" a vital phonics program

   Instead we got things like,

Ed101: How to spend hours designing a 15-minute lesson
Ed102: Taking the fun out of using textbooks by removing them altogether and making you find the materials and copy them when there isn't a working copier for miles around
Ed103: The facts of education: say goodbye to a regular sex life
Ed104: Guilting your former ideas of teaching away

   Getting the picture? When I finally got out of northern California like Luke and the gang from Jabba's exploding stronghold, and into Las Vegas with a school already assigned to me (er, vice versa on that one) and an apartment waiting for my farts, I was virtually clueless about what to do first. Despite 3 days of orientation (during which I was interviewed on TV for the 6:00 news), I learned nothing about being a teacher and more about desert skin survival for women and cute little crafts that my lefty nature has no way of accomplishing.

   What I came to realize after a few years was, the orientation crew had no idea how to make us feel like teachers because they'd probably screwed up meeting their goals as well. They don't do that fancy schmancy orientation crap anymore probably because the district realized they were screwing up the plebes far too early. When I got to my assignment, I noticed a lot of cliqueyness among the veterans. I realized later that it wasn't out of a lack of friendliness, it was survival instinct in a war zone...and as I wasn't ever in a clique, I was pretty much alone in that zone...and had no clue as to proceed. Putting me on the 5th grade front lines 2 years later was like putting Klink on the Russian front on "Hogan's Heroes".

   Despite ups and downs in a normally up and down profession, I've come to a point of semi-comfort in my career, maybe too semi-comfortable. That's why we have to make these goals...comfort leads to complacency and complacency leads to a smugness that is dangerous in terms of having embarrassing "off" moments, often happening when scheduled for an observation.

Observation (noun): a random moment when your supervisor comes with with an iPad just as you finish telling about a dark era called "corporal punishment" to the kids, merely to let them know how lucky they are to live now...and the supervisor then types everything you say, notes every eye twitch and sweat stain on the armpit...and you have to justify every sweat bead and connect it to a learning standard during a later conference.

In conclusion, my real inner goals are to be the best teacher I can be and for my kids to remember me fondly, something I can positively predict as reality more than 10 years ago. On paper, it's more specific, but pretty close, just in "edu-speak", a language also originated from a  Kryptonian ship...now if you'll excuse me, I'll finish typing up my goals, then see if Betty Ford has a June 15 opening...that is if my food stamps application is turned down!

New/Old America...I always like oldies but goodies

   So once again I was listening to AM radio coming home from work. You may say, "Bryan you are becoming an old fart, listening to that garbage!" As I fart in response, I also point out that FM radio has become its own corporate joke. I once enjoyed the oldies station because there was a range of oldies years, at least 20 years ago. It was once 1955-75. As time went on, the early base got later as did the recent cap. Now I am lucky if I hear any late 60s and if I do it is all repetitive. It all is. Even when my wife puts on the metal station, I hear a lot of the same songs, some old, some within the last ten years. Rarely do we hear a plethora of the new...so generally when my wife is in the car, her music is played on the phone. If it is just me, I play AM talk.

   It is indeed nothing to get riled up over, but I do get some tidbits that the regular news leaves out, and as a lot of my FB friends post the extreme left or right repetitive shares about the evil right or evil left, AM talk is my source for items of interest. 20 years ago I listened often to Rush Limbaugh before I realized the Emergency Broadcast System had a higher IQ, and he was so far on the right his views were even out of my right-side peripheral vision. In fact, I think he contributed to me supporting Clinton because he tried to argue every good thing Clinton was doing was bad because of the ongoing scandals. Like Limbaugh's party had a clean record! So, I left AM radio for quite a long time.

   In the past few years I've picked it up again. One station has a lot of good local talk and it is not one side or the other, it criticizes pretty much everyone who does or says something boneheaded....which is pretty much anybody in a position of national power anymore. I don't take their word as the truth, I do look up what they said before I stick my neck out...but then hours later I share a scam post that my wife's uncle shared, so you know my research brain cells are selective.

   Sadly, what I get from all the talk is that we are in a new America, and I don't like it much. I am not quite sure when we evolved into this monster, but I think 9/11 was the culprit. Change always happens: I see different classes every year, businesses come and go, as do colleagues and, sadly, friends, either by death or plain old time and distance. I accept all this as life in motion. But there is a darkness now that is scary, and it has spread into all facets of American life.

Education
 In the days of film projectors and ditto machines, school was a place where we learned the basics, and we learned them with regular sunshine, semi-decent lunches, rough recess, and teachers who had a say in how they taught the material. Coming from the receiving end to the giving end, I have seen the "Central Committee" in D.C. put their politicized hands into matters they have no idea about. Granted, something happened between 1991 and 2002 that made these disasters come about. First there was "No Child Left Behind", a political measure designed to drive teachers crazy and then out of the business altogether. The basic concept, as I understood it, was to have teachers promote their kids all the way up to 5th grade despite the fact they couldn't read even "Curious George" all the way through by 4th grade. It was then my job to bring them up 5 grade-levels in reading and math before they joined their middle school gangs, or I was considered an ineffective teacher.

Then they brought about the Common Core, which was in theory a way to combine all extant teaching standards into a consolidated and doable yearly teaching plan. The reality was, they wanted to twist all accepted math and reading teaching methods into a undecipherable mix of gob and blob that when microwaved turned into an Obama bobble-head toy. And somewhere in the mix, teachers had to explain why their kids weren't getting it. Yes, parents are only responsible for over-sugaring their kid and giving them technology too early, but not responsible for reading to and with their kids.

Food 
At one time, we ate and drank whatever we wanted, got our exercise, then dumped whatever we ingested. The system worked. I downed quite a load of sugar in the form of crumb buns and Tastykake jelly krimpets, and nitrates in the form of hot dogs on a daily basis. Of course, I also played with my friends and rode my bike often so I worked off what I ate, at least in the younger years.

Along the way, some strange things happened. Butter became evil and vegetable oil-based margarine became healthy. Low-fat snacks with enough chemicals to create the Joker many times over were considered to be healthy between-meal treats. And then people named Atkins, Oz, Scarecrow,Tin Man, and South Beach all came forward telling us how to eat right. It was all, and still is, confusing. Butter came back into vogue and bacon got popular for some reason. I honestly don't know what to make of it.

Fear
Simply said, there was one thing we as Americans used to fear, and that was Communism. Growing up in the 80s, we as kids didn't really understand what is was, we just "knew" it was what the evil Soviets practiced, and anything Soviet was bad; that is, until Reagan "tamed" them and their benevolent leader Gorbachev. When the Berlin Wall fell, and likewise the Soviet Union 2 years later, we felt victorious. However, that victory was shadowed by Saddam Hussein the year previous, when gas shot up over $1 a gallon for the first time in forever. As time moved, so did villains that were subdued under the Soviets. By the time the new century/millenium was in full gear, we encountered the greatest challenge yet: Survivor! No, seriously, it was 9/11/2001, when a terrorist attack on U.S,. soil stunned us beyond belief. Since then, we as a nation have gradually become afraid of offending anyone, lest they hurt us individually or as a nation. The trouble is, even if we walk on eggshells, we are in no less danger. We also seem to be afraid to rise against offensive government acts that take away our basic freedoms in exchange for "safety". I feel no safer after 14 years than a Prius on the Autobahn!

I prefer the old America, although my eyes are more open to the old realities now. As kids we cared only about TV cartoons, biking in the neighborhood, the newest Atari or Coleco game, and when the newest Star Wars, Star Trek, or Indiana Jones movie was coming out. I'd go back and invest in sure-fire companies like Coca Cola and Apple, to make sure my family was financially secure. Who knows, maybe I'd even start my own AM talk show and discuss our basic freedoms...life, liberty and the pursuit of "Sea of Love" on the oldies station once in a while!