May 12, 2010
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The Daily News1 So, as the perfect week continues, I ask my students if they have ANY idea what the word “dude” means.2 My best class, mind you.
3 One student raised her hand, said she had looked it up I THINK on Urban Dictionary, but I could be wrong and I’m WAY too lazy to look it up at this grand hour, but the definition was consistent with other students all day.
4 SO.
5 For your reading pleasure, I bring you this definition for the word “DUDE”:
Dude noun, verb
1. an Eastern person who dresses beautifully and goes to a Western ranch, usu. to be ridiculed by the cowboys.
2. an elephant that has an ingrown hair on its ass.
6 Huh?7 I swear to you. I’m deliberately NOT going to look that one up, because I rather like it.
8 So let me get this straight. If you say, “Dude, can I have some of your peanuts? You are ACTUALLY saying, “Hey, elephant with an ingrown hair on its ass, can I have some of your peanuts?”
9 Things haven’t changed much since yesterday.10 Ah, vell.
11 After a fashion, I’ve come to accept it all.
12 And I do mean all.
13 Moving on, Part the First: Went out with my teacher buds, Cris and Gemma yesterday. Nice to have massively awesome and intelligent friends to share all this boushit with. We later went shopping at Eastridge, a mall devoted to bad clothing, and makeup counters. I did love shopping with them for makeup for Senior Ball, but really? I think false eyebrows for Senior Ball won’t work with my manly ruggedness. I lay off the stuff, and just maintain my boozy Rat Pack look.
14 Dudes.
15 I just got done calling two colleagues “ingrown hairs on an elephant’s ass.”
14 I actually brought that up to them in the court known to us simply as the MacGrill.
15 Distorted reference to the Macaroni Grill.
16 I KNOW, I KNOW. But it’s a place we can ride a slide to, and then enjoy the beauty of a day in school, and listen to velvety standards.
17 Hey, teachers have lives too, dude.
18 Whoops. <he looks around furtively.> Anyone lookin’?
19 No offense delivered, hopefully, no offense taken.
20 Yeesh.
21 Moving on, Part the Second: I keep glancing over at the teevee, and it is playing Glee, a show that works wonderfully as a lava lamp. Earlier, the kid with the really high, falsetto voice sang John Cougar’s Little Pink Houses, and did a wonderful job. I KNOW, I KNOW, I should throw the actor’s name out there.
22 Sorry, but I’m not yet hip enough to give you the names of the tremendous cast. I’m usually on this stuff, but this grading period has left the teevee a lava lamp with many wonderful moments.
23 Right now the cast is doing U2′s One, one of the most amazing songs ever written.
24 I stayed focused on the DN, but DAYUM! I LOVE that song. The whole house cheered.
25 Moving on, Part the Second: Okay, okay, so I’m a bit awed by the Hawks. My feeling is, they are absolute chum for our AWESOME Sharks, but classic Sharks’ fans might not agree. Dude. <oops, sorry! There he goes again with the elephant reference.>.
26 Enough already. <slap.slap.>
27 Dayum.
28 One.
29 Who hasn’t been touched by that tune?
30 I LOVE U2.
31 I’ll bet someone has that as a license plate. It is a beautiful way to give a shout out to the band.
32 Or to someone you love. Or to someone who just flipped you off.
33 Something like that.
34 And the world continues to spin. Hang on, it’s goin’ faster than you think!
35 AnywayZ…
36 Moving on, Part the Third: It’s Wednesday. Every Wednesday we have minimum days, followed by some sort of interesting meeting.
37 Back in the Day, Ponch, Me, Neveras, Rocha, Russell, and a number of others used to play a goodly hand of Hangman at faculty meetings.
38 We meant no disrespect, but rather enjoyed goofing off on rare occasions when things would drift to the somewhat dull. I have a Ponch story to beat the band, but you’ll never see it here. At least without his permission.
39 Moving on, Part the Fourth: The theme of this week is how stupid everybody has become.
40 I can’t for the life of me understand all the controversy about those idiot students who wore American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo.
41 Here’s the deal: in terms of human rights and freedom of speech, they were well within their rights. In terms of being STUPID, they took the gold. That was an obvious slap-in-the-face to Mexican Americans, and it was clearly deliberate. Their parents should be taken to the woodshed for a whoopin’, but they had a perfect right to express themselves, if you believe in America at all.
42 THAT’S why our nation is great; we allow everybody, no matter how stupid, to have their say, and to be heard.
43 Common sense would tell white parents to tell their kids that wearing American flag clothing on Cinco de Mayo is probably not the best choice of wardrobes, and is disrespectful.
44 On the other hand, we do have a first amendment to the Constitution that says this: “Congress shall make no laws telling white kids that they can’t wear American flag T-Shirts on Cinco de Mayo”.
45 Sorry folks, but truly? If you believe in America, you allow freedom of speech, even if it offends ridiculously your own beliefs and ethics.
46 Personally? I believe those students were wrong, in every sense of the word. But as Voltaire put it, and I will paraphrase, “I disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
47 Interesting issue, but really? A non-issue if you still believe in that shot-up piece of swiss-cheese that used to be our constitution.
48 Ah, forget all that. Nobody wants to think anymore anyway. Theme of the week. Lose weight. Get fake. Talk like everyone else. Think like everyone else. We’ve lost our senses, truly.
49 Here’s my poem “Morons”. I told you bout it yesterday, ingrown hairs on elephants’ asses <hey, it’s a term of endearment yo!>:
morons
morons just seem to be everywhere,
don’t you think?
it doesn’t seem to matter where I go
they pack their kids in cars and seem to follow
me places
or, perhaps, they are even there when I arrive.
and when I drive down the highway
they seem to travel right alongside me,
with all their stuff on the roof of their automobiles.
sometimes I roll my eyes in disbelief
that there are simply so many of them
who invented them?
dunderheads galore, no shortage
if you’ve ever worked a moment with the Public you know exactly what it its I am
talking about
they wear it in their clothing styles, rich and poor
the more I move about, the more they seem to be,
not a trendsetter among them
and yet if a television set had a show with people who rolled their socks down
and wore one shoe, you can bet that half the world would begin walking around
and with one shoe on and one shoe off
they would still manage to find me
and follow me around like some bad version of Jesus.
4/12/05
50 That’s about all the grousing I could do in one day.
52 Take all of this with tongue planted firmly in cheek, dude.
53 Have a great day, truly.
54 Peace.
~H~
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