COTA Chatter

I'm going to make COTA chatter a regular feature here on TRJ. Since I ride the bus everyday (COTA, the Central Ohio Transit Authority) I will be including funny, sad, crazy, dangerous events that take place while I am on or waiting for the bus.

Today I waited for the #10 with a woman (about 40, I would say, maybe a little younger) who was singing along with her MP3 player. Rapping, I should say. She knew most of the words, but sometimes she would mumble along: "West Coast for, fo sho . . . na ma de ba . . . talk about beating you niggas get beat . . ."

A child rode up on his bike and she greeted him. The kid asked about the woman's son, and she replied that he would be getting out (of jail) in a few months.

"I done told you kids, you mess with the whiteys downtown they gonna lock you up."

In the middle of a lyric she burped, spit a few more rhymes, and then excused herself in-time.

I take the #10 downtown and transfer to another bus which takes me to work. This same woman was waiting to transfer near me, and I overheard a little bit of her phone conversation.

"I talked to my sister last night and she said her grandson died. I said 'which one' and she got all mad. How'm I s'posed to know?"

Thank you for reading the first edition of COTA chatter.

A Day In The Life, Part Two: Woke Up, Got Out Of Bed

[You will need to read my previous entry. This one picks up where it left off]

The first conversation centered on Brooke. As I mentioned she had just completed her Masters Degree in international business or something like that. I was blown away to hear that she had done it in nine months. That’s an impressively short amount of time. It made me feel pathetic. She was a little bit older than me, but not much, and she had her Masters. And here I am -- a person with high aspirations for study, and even higher aspirations for eventually teaching and writing in my field. Here I am, tending bar. It wasn’t a new thought, but meeting someone who had plunged into advanced study with such commitment to earn that graduate degree in NINE MONTHS made me feel like a shmuck. She had busted her ass – was I capable of that?

The other conversation was later in the day, with Geoff. I was explaining my five-year plan to him. This was, in essence (and it never really expanded beyond the essence of a plan, even in my mind) that I would apply to graduate schools that fall and the next fall Sarah and I would move to wherever I decided to go. Sarah was a graphic designer, which is a pretty marketable profession. Then I would be a professor and Sarah and I would move to wherever I got a teaching job. Geoff then related the story of his brother who was a history professor (history is my field). He was apparently barely meeting ends meet. I had seen life after grad school as wildly fulfilling and unchallenging once I had that almighty Ph.D. Maybe it wouldn’t be? I was pretty sure I could do better than Geoff’s brother seemed to be doing, but looking back on what he said to me it raised some questions that I needed to answer.

Was I expecting, even counting on living a comfortable, pleasantly stable life? The answer was yes, but was this realistic, and if so, was this healthy? What I know now is that I will have to work incredibly hard to do what I want to do in my life and the day when I can let up and truly take things easy is decades away. I now realize that I owe this to mankind because of the incredibly resources and opportunities that I have been given, the likes of which probably 99% of people who have ever lived could barely conceive of. I owe it to myself not to squander these in self-indulgent trivialities and not to sell my soul to the hedonism that was all around me that April day in Savannah. This I now know.

This conversation was later in the afternoon and I was quite drunk by now. The deck around us was now filled with Blackberries and expensive sunglasses. Sarah and I mused about how much we probably stood out. I realized how much I probably stood out more than any of us. I began casting a cynical eye on everyone around us, making vicious sweeping generalizations. I was touched by a mild academic anger. I railed against all the men who were no more than their father’s sons, inheriting (or marrying into) mid-size but profitable businesses. Men who voted for Republicans because they seemed to fight for God and country. Men who saw their positions (and the luxuries of this day and many others) as perfectly justified; men who never had guilt to assuage about plight of anyone their work slighted or harmed as long as they could keep up payments on the boat and afford to send their sons to Vanderbilt or Auburn. Men who played lip service to the notion of social responsibility by attending a charity banquet twice a year. I viciously rambled, as I do now.

Meanwhile, as I told Sarah, what about the people who serve men such as these? I was one of these at another time and place, after all. We scrape our livings from the refuse of their excess. I thought of the cute bartender. I told Sarah I didn’t want to live like this, even if I had the means to. She tilted her head slightly and said to me, in her placating playful tone:

“You just need a real job.”

I didn’t know it then but our relationship was over.

We went into the tent where everyone else was and the conversation spilled over to the rest of the group, which now included Geoff’s boss. We argued some more, my argument focusing on the fact that, no, not every American did really have the opportunity to live the life that everyone around us was living. Geoff’s boss heard me out on a lark. I actually thought he found me funny; a kind of novelty act. I was pretty drunk at this point. I don’t know how the conversation ended, but it did, and we left soon after that.

Sarah made plans to go out with everyone afterwards, but I had to work in the morning. Big corporate group at the hotel, don’t you know. I picked up a forty or two and kicked back, thinking about the events of the day. I was still buzzing with indignation at the whole affair. More and more my anger turned towards Sarah’s words.

What was a “real job” to her? Nine-to-five? Pension? Company car? This was nothing that I had ever wanted, and was not in line with my career plans. I don’t want to buy, sell, trade, any of that bullshit, even if it could give me a house in Hilton Head. What I wanted was to teach and learn for a living. If this is the person who I am allegedly planning to spend the rest of my life with, how can it ever work if we are so off base on something like this? It couldn't, and I wouldn't.

I had a conversation that night with my good and true friend Jeremy via instant message. I was very drunk at this point. I remember saying to him that people like us had a responsibility to do what we can for the betterment of mankind. To expose and combat the wrongs that many cannot see or don’t understand, the wrongs and abuses and injustice that some refuse to acknowledge as such.

I couldn’t sleep that night, even though I was quite hammered. Sarah came home and proceeded to call me a drunk. True, but not a nice thing to say. Also a stark thing to acknowledge about the person your allegedly plan to spend the rest of your life with. I slept on the couch that night, a first I think, in our very long relationship. We spent the next couple of days on the edge of not speaking. A few days later she forced the issue, and I left Savannah a few days later.

That is the first part of the story of how I came to be where I am and the beginning of what journey towards a startling awakening of my mind to the injustice of the world. But it was only the beginning.

A Day In The Life, Part One: I Read the News Today

From August 2007 to April 2008 I lived in Savannah, GA with my girlfriend Sarah. Fresh out of college, I was eager to begin adulthood in an adult relationship, hopefully get an adult job, and realize my adult prospects in the Sunbelt. Pretty much nothing turned out the way I envisioned it. One of my days in Savannah stands out above all others.

Sarah and I were invited by our friend Geoff to attend a golf tournament as VIP guests of his company, the local Volvo dealership. We would have a view of the 18th fairway, an air-conditioned tent, open-bar and generous buffet. It was a beautiful sunny day – typical for Savannah. We were on one end of a long deck, broken into sections with a few tables and the tent, which housed the bar, buffet, and a few more tables. Each company had paid for a section for the use of employees, clients, friends, family, associates, etc. In our case a parts-supplier had provided for the dealership as a perk of some kind.

The day began slowly. We arrived around 11 and began drinking shortly thereafter. We had premium liquors and some nice imported beer. I think I drank mostly vodka-tonics, with a sprinkling of beer. Sarah and Geoff were the only people there who I knew. Geoff’s new girlfriend, Brooke, who Sarah and I had just met, was visiting from Oregon.

Geoff is a fun guy. A total drunk and very fun. The four of us chatted about this and that. Brooke had just finished her masters and she was going to move in with Geoff in a few months. We watched the golfers from time-to-time, ate a quality, filling lunch, and kept right on drinking.
As the afternoon wound on the deck around us began to fill. I got a glimpse of the other spectators on my frequent trips to the Port-A-Potty. There were very few people there under 30, most people seemed to be in the 45-60 age range. Sarah and I were definitely the only people there who might have been carded for alcohol. People were dressed in golf clothes: polo-type shirts, dress khakis, nice shoes, Blackberries. These were businessmen; many of them probably considered this a casual business outing I would guess.

I was a bartender at the time. I worked at a deluxe luxury hotel, serving drinks at the swanky weddings of blondes and doctors, daddy’s-girls and bankers. I had tried but been unable to find any work in my “field” or even something semi-professional. I was used to events like this golf tournament, but I had always seen them from behind a stack of rocks glasses or under the weight of a heavy tray.

In light of this, I struck up a conversation with our bartender. She was young and cute, reminding me of a college friend who I had always been attracted to. I was friendly, but I don’t think I crossed the line to flirtation. After all, we were in the same line of work, and I always enjoyed it when guests engaged me as a human, not just a hand on a bottle. The bartender lived a kind of gypsy existence, working for the traveling catering company that was putting on this fine event for us. We chatted off-and-on throughout the day, talking shop in a familiar way.

There are two conversations that I remember in particular from the early afternoon. I can’t say if it was these conversations which colored the rest of the day. In retrospect everything was building toward what was to come, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about where the course of the day was taking me. These were normal enough exchanges, inane even, but something about that day. Maybe it was the sun, the affluent atmosphere, the booze to be sure. It was probably bound to happen eventually, but this was the day that my life began to crack wide open.

COTA chatter

Today, like every day, I rode the bus. It’s a great way to observe humanity. You can’t help but observe – its quite in your face. I missed the bus I was gunning for, so I had to wait on the next one for about twenty minutes.
While at the stop there was, I’m guessing, a family of children. The oldest were maybe fourteen or fifteen, one of whom was pushing a stroller. I was reading a book, but I couldn’t help observing this family. They were right in front of me. One shouted to another something about “ . . . getting your ass beat.” I looked up and a seven or eight year old girl was having a conversation with her eleven year old, I’m assuming, brother. The conversation seemed to be somewhat in the vein of the girl’s appearance. I didn’t make everything out, but she seemed to indicate through her grandiose body language that she thought her ass could look better. Her brother pointed out that she needed to diet, and she latched on to the idea with enthusiasm.
“I’m gonna be eating my noodle soup, I ain’t gonna be eatin’ no cheese, I gonna be drinking my diet soda . . .”
I got on the bus and there was no room to sit. To me, a bus with no room to sit doesn’t necessarily mean that every seat is taken. I’m all over and empty two-seat bench. I usually sit in the seat nearest the aisle, so as to discourage anyone from trying to share with me. A three seat bench I am somewhat wary of; someone could take the seat on the other end and on public transportation you never know what manner of person that might be. If there are no unoccupied benches I will usually share with someone, depending on the length of my ride and how tired I am. That is only an option if there is bench with someone of normal girth on it. In Columbus, Ohio this is by no means a certainty. The middle of a three-seat bench is almost always out of the question for this same reason, but also because being sandwiched, even between two normal sized (thinner than average) is not much fun. When I can’t sit I can’t read, so when this happens I settle into a thousand yard, watching the human and commercial squalor pass through the windows. The depressing sights no longer affect me, and, pushing into the sunset towards Hilltop there is sometimes an unlikely beauty in that rolling urban mural.
Today, I stepped on the bus and a quick survey showed no available seats. Before I can turn around I hear: “There’s a seat right here.” I turn around and there is indeed a sandwich seat “available.” What the hell I thought, and I sat down without surveying the man who made the offer or the other person. I sat down, sliding my backpack around to my chest, unzipping it, and removing my book, a well-practiced maneuver. But before I can open the cover, completing the last leg, the man to my left, who had invited me to sit, spoke. This is rarely a good sign on a bus.
“My name’s Andre.”
I looked over at him; looked him square in the face. I hesitated for a moment, thinking about giving him a false name, giving me some personal distance from this man, because, God knows, we couldn’t have been physically closer. But the only name that came to mind was my own, and I turned to my book.
“What are you reading?”
I was really in no mood for this, so I simply closed the book over my hand, presenting the cover to him. (“SECRETS: A MEMOIR OF VIETNAM AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS” by Daniel Ellsberg.) At this point I actually began to read.
“What are you reading that for?”
Now, some days I am more than willing to engage the benighted and often intoxicated people who ride the bus. But today I had many things immediately on my mind, including this book, which I was (and am still, as of writing) intent on finishing today. Again I hesitated. Without really intending to, I was an asshole.
“Because it’s interesting,” I said.
This for sure put an end to it. But Andre wasn’t finished. He made an observation about the fact that he was drinking. I couldn’t summon the will for even the most inane reply; I may have vaguely twitched my head in response. I continued to read.
Maybe the bus hit a pot-hole, or maybe Andre just momentarily lost control of his hand. What happened is that Andre dropped his coffee straight down to the floor of the bus. I looked down to see coffee splattered all over my left foot. The Styrofoam gas-station coffee cup rolled on the floor and Andre retrieved it.
“Good thing I had the lid on good and tight.”
“ . . .Yeah,” I muttered heavily.
I felt violated; he might as well have vomited on my shoe for the way I felt at that point. Then I began to think he might actually vomit on me. I felt violated. I felt my shoe get slightly warm. It might as well been any kind of Andre’s body fluid, it would have felt just as vile. Maybe I should just stand up, I thought. No, I countered to myself. That would surely invite some sort of comment from him. I sat and read and fumed.
Recently COTA (the Central Ohio Transit Authority) has been approved to begin using larger busses on the busier routes. Too late for my shoe.

Movie Review -- Buffalo 66 (A)

Buffalo 66 is an unlikely love story set one bleak rustbelt winter day in Buffalo, NY. It is at times tender and angry, hilarious and heartcrushing. Ultimately love and acceptance overcome despondency and bitterness.

In every conceivable way, Billy (played by writer/director Vincent Gallo) is a miserable low-life. He is a compulsive liar, still obsessed with his third-grade crush, and he treats his only friend (who is retarded) with the disdain of a bully. This is the day he has been released from prison after five years. His only offense was a foolishly large bet on the Buffolo Bills in the Superbowl, placed with a ruthless bookie.

Layla (Christina Ricci) is forced to spend this day with Billy, perhaps the last day of his wretched life. A visit to his provincial and unloving parents (hilariously portrayed by Angelica Huston and Ben Gazara) a round of bowling, which seems to be Billy's only pride, and an accidental run-in with Billy's grade school crush. We learn nothing about Layla, except that she is drawn to Billy. Perhaps out of her own loneliness or a tender attraction to his helplessness and despair the two become almost imperceptibly bound. By the end of the film we see Billy on the road to a new life with Layla, eschewing himself of the bitterness and blame that had kept him a child.

Buffalo 66 is as warm as an ice-berg. Every character is blatantly and hopelessly flawed, except for Layla, who stands out as a benign angelic figure. Buffalo is gritty, unforgiving, windswept and cold. The connection between Billy and Layla, however, brings light and warmth into this human tundra. They surrender to eachother and their world is cast into a new light.

You may not believe it, but it is really quite a feel-good movie. The feel-good that can only come by seeing the misery and powerlessness that comes before redemption. I recommend this movie for anyone who has ever been in love, and also for everyone else.

What are we doing with ourselves?

The other day, while walking from my bus stop to work, I passed a woman on the sidewalk who was putting some packaged food into a box. As I approached her she looked up at me. "Sir, would you help me carry this box to the bus stop right over there."

I told her I was late to work and that I didn't have time. That was a lie. In fact I ended being 30 minutes early to work. I just didn't want to, although I knew it would only have taken a minute or two. I don't really know why I didn't help her. She didn't look homeless or threatening in any way. As soon as I walked away from her I regretted not helping her with the box.

What are we doing with our lives? Are we living for ourselves, for others, or both? I realize its a weak cord connecting my experience with the woman to that question, but nevertheless it is a question that we should ask ourselves.

I will answer the question for myself. Right now I am certainly living for myself. I need to find some firm footing in my new adulthood, and that necessitates some self-service. This is necessary for my very basic happiness and to pursue my goals. Now, my goals are anything but self-serving. I would like to raise the consciousness and help empower the people in this country and around the world who are struck down and repressed, as well as the people who, to varying degrees of complicity, enable the myriads of injustice all around us. (This group of people includes just about every living human.)

I would like notoriety, no doubt. But not just to see my name in lights. With notoriety I can better spread a message that benefits almost all of mankind. I am not a self-less instrument of good, but I would like to do more than my part for the betterment of everyone.

I wish that I had helped the woman with her box. And not because of some bull-shit "pay it forward" mentality, which ensures that any altruistic impulses will be on the smallest scale. I should have helped her because it is not entirely her fault that she needed help get through her day. This I know. I want to help other people realize this and to act on their knowledge.

The Godfather (The Novel) B-

I plan to use this blog as a reviewing platform for books, movies, and music. I am interested in many diverse things, so it should be interesting to look back in a few months and see all the pieces of art and academe I have ingested. In keeping with that plan I will give a short review of the last book I have finished, "The Godfather" by Mario Puzo, published in 1969.

I'm sure many people know this book by its movie incarnation, as I did. In fact, I still do and always will. The book was a great piece of story telling, mostly in keeping with the Godfather Pt.1. The aspects of Vito Corleone's life (that's the Godfather) that are covered by the film the Godfather Pt. 2 are also included. There are also a few tangential story lines stemming from characters introduced in the opening scene, Connie Corleone's wedding. Other than that, the book is the movie almost scene for scene.

This would be the third addition to my list of movies which are better than the books they are based on (Fight Club, Deliverance the others). Puzo reveals the thought processes and inner monologues of the wide cast of characters in an episodic fashion, keeping the reader an outsider to the insular world of Italian organized crime in America.

Many times when I compare a novel and the movie adapted from it I say "How could they cut that scene?" While reading "The Godfather" I found myself saying "Thank God they cut that scene" The tangential characters find their way back to the main story line in the last 50 pages, but to no consequence. These individual stories are only marginally interesting in their own rite, and rather pointless compared to the sanguinary and sordid doings of the Corleone family.

Puzo writes with little perspective beyone that of his characters. Their intricate decisions and thoughts are broken down on the page, and the reader is commensurately immersed in the world in which every character is. The reader remains an outsider. I think this is a vital approach to understanding such a culture that would seem primitive if the reader was plunged head-first. I think if I had not seen the movie the end would have been a lot more powerful. All the themes of loyalty, responsibility, and family shed their abstraction as Michael Corleone, the man who seemed the least likely gangster of the characters, realizes his place at the head of his family.

Its hard to judge having seen the movie version many times. The movie realized the story in a much more compelling manner than the book could. A good read for fans of the movie all the same.

Take The Power Back

I recently attended a lecture my John Perkins. He has written two books about his experiences working for as an economist for a consulting firm in the 70s and 80s. His books, notable "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" reveal how corporations in conjunction with the World Bank and the IMF keep the world poor and third-world countries subservient to the developed world. Mr. Perkins now tours the world speaking about his experiences and urging people to act to change the injustices in the world that are carried out by the rich against the poor.

"Confessions" was a watershed work for me as an aspiring historian, and, along with Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" have been the main influences in framing what I want to study in history. For this reason I was greatly looking forward to seeing Perkins. But his talk spoke to me personally. He urged everyone to fight what he calls the "corporatocracy" (corporations, governments, and international monetary institutions) by buying only products and services produced by responsible corporations who do not exploit workers. He also encouraged everyone to follow their dreams and use their talents as a means of fighting back.

I have always felt that my life is kind of pointless and self-indulgent if I do nothing to leave my mark. Recently that thought has evolved from merely seeking notoriety towards making a tangible impression in the world I leave behind when I die. I know how empowering history, and reading Perkins and Zinn has exposed the many injustices, both bold and underlying, that have marked the course of history. I want to continue that work, both exposing these injustices and empowering people to improve their own lives and the lives of everyone. And I heard this directly from Perkins. Use your talents, fight back. I have talents, and I waste them if I do not use them for the greater good.

I would encourage anyone to read "Confessions" and "A People's History." They detail things which may just be vague notions to many about the origins of the world we live in, and why the poor remain poor. I wish there was more I could do now, but if I work now to improve my own life, I will some day be in a position to open the eyes of many, as Zinn and Perkins have done for me.

On Life . .

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams; live the life you imagine."
-- Thoreau

My good friend also keeps a blog.
It is called Avoid Reality. We had a great conversation a few weeks ago on blogging, and more generally on the idea of avoiding reality. Many things are difficult to grasp, and many more are even more difficult to accept. The reality is, reality -- life itself -- can be and is difficult, painful, worthy of escape, perhaps, but not, in my opinion, worthy of aversion.

Another good friend of mine, sort of my mentor, gave me a wonderful card at my college commencement last spring. It included a quote by Thomas Paine: "What we obtain too cheaply we esteem to lightly." In other words, anything worth doing is difficult. In other words, that which is easy we will take for granted and eventually fuck it up.

My life has been pretty crazy since I left the cozy confines of college in the summer of 2007. Even more so since I abandoned the cozy confines of my pentultimate ex-girlfriend nine months ago. The first 18 months of my So Called Adult Life. I remember when my teachers in middle school and high school use to tell me how easy life was for us at that age, and how much more difficult it was to be and adult. Pshaw, I thought, as probably everyone does.

Over the last nine months my life has been like Cedar Point, America's Roller Coast. When I was riding low it was often very hard to see the way up. When I was riding high there was no ceiling to how high I might soar. But life is only like a roller coaster ride if you decide to see it that way.

The fact is there is always something unexpected or unforeseen somewhere up the track of your life, that course, which, depending on who you read, may or may not already be laid out in front of you. What I think we need is fortitude in the dips, and diligence in the swells.

But always embrace what is your life. Don't hide in booze, TV, or the internet. I mention these three things because these are what I chiefly use to avoid reality. But reality is all we got, and when I really think about it, its alright.