Oh Well...

I didn't get the job.

I am not surprised or shocked, but I am upset and disappointed. I knew it was not going to happen, so no big clandestined response. This is just the icing I needed for a really rough and bad week.

The Departure of the Malaise

Ding dong the asshole is gone and I could not be more thrilled. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted.

Sayonara sucker.

Moviefone: 'Rent' Movie Exclusives

Watching this is killing me...in a good way. I actually got really teary-eyed. I thought I was excited when Chicago was coming out. That is nothing compared to how I feel about this show. Oh my god....amazing.

Yet Another Bible-Thumping Republican Dumbass

Robertson "Clarifies"

He is an idiot. Along with all the others. I heard his speech. He was calling for an assassination. And we wonder why there are so many terror attacks.

And Bush goes back on TV tonight to ONCE AGAIN offer reasons why we should support the war...this on the heels of telling protestors they are entitled to their opinions, but they are wrong. Hey George, have your kids die in a pointless war and we will see how you feel. This is not about the red, white and blue. This is about the green. This is about oppression. This is ethnocentrism at its best.

Three more years of this jackass. He is totally going to run this country into the ground.

And hello!??!?! Gas is $2.67 here now. Screw this.

Oh Annie....

Lestat...THE MUSICAL!!

At first, I was skeptical about this. But I DID like the music in AIDA. And I do love Carolee Carmello. The cast seems awesome with Panaro and Noseworthy an dthe girl they have playing Claudia looks fierce.

Did I just say fierce?

So I must say that I am looking forward to this.

I am so sure I did not get this job.

And it depresses me.

But I did get Paul in A Chorus Line.

And it excites me.

I feel Club Med is going well.

And that is ok.

I have 11 classes to teach this semester.

And that should kill me.

At least I can look forward to this:



I get chills everytime I think about it. It is the first Broadway show I ever saw. The first show I ever fell in love with. I will be a mess in the theatre.

That job woulda been nice...

I Guess It Didn't Hurt

Well blessed me indeed. I got a call this afternoon and on Monday I am going int to interview for the full-time position at SPC. So thank you God/Buddha/Shiva/Goddess/Travis/Whoever for arranging this little interview. Now, I could pester you for just a wee bit more help in allowing me to get this job. I am fully aware that it rests on my shoulders and in how I communicate and present myself, but any positive energy, vibe, and saved up karma would be nice.

But honestly, getting this job would mean so many things for me. First of all, it is an actual stable, full-time job with a real salary and benefits. No more teaching 10 classes, being a freeway flyer, and feeling like the total bottom of the barrel all the time. I can actually focus more on my students and really hone in on the pedagogy and time I have not been able to have since I started teaching more than five classes a semester. And, as odd as this is, I would have time to publish academic articles. I have amassed a collection of ideas over the years but have had ZERO time to research, study and put out feelers. It is odd because all through graduate school we have the "publish or perish" ethos drilled into our heads. Those are the profs that succeed and get somewhere. I resented that until I was out of school and realized more and more how important it is that our academic voices are heard in whatever vein we choose.

So those of you out there wishing me well and crossing the fingers, please continue to do so through next week. I mean, seriously. Do.

This means my NY moving plans are moved again. But this time, it would be for a GREAT reason.

Sigh....

48 Hour Realizations

...that meetings about meetings about meetings are futile, yet no one seems to realize that.

...that Club Med is often like a chicken running around with its head cut off...and its wings....and the feet...so really..it's just rolling around in a bloody feathery mess.

...that the people I knew when I was 16, are not the people I knew when I was 16.

...that people still think I am 16 and think it necessary to safegaurd me against the evils of the world under the guise of being helpful and watching out for me. Here's a thought, try being a friend first before you get all round table on me.

...that some of my friends are fucking assholes who I should just carterize out of my life because I seem to be friend by necessity because I am in the same environment they are.

...that more and more I firmly believe that life is not fair and that no one, no matter what they tell you, is there to help you or lend a hand. That is not pessimism, that is the truth.

...that people who tell me I am closed off and unapproachable are just lazy and looking for excuses because they can't manipulate me, can't find things out easily, and don't understand that some things are none of their fucking business and that friendship is not a carte blanche for having to know everything about me.

...that there are some rude people in the world who love to stand on their platforms and tout their beliefs about equality and freedom and on and on, but can't sustain anything resembling a friendship or close connection with people.

...that I am sick and tired of all the above and refuse to resign myself to the life I have consigned myself.

We Need More of This

CNN.com - Soldier's mom digs in near Bush ranch - Aug 7, 2005

We need more families, civilians and aware soldiers to start doing this all over the country so that this pointless, futile and ridiculous event we call a war against terrorism can come to an end and these soldiers can come home. This may very well be even more pointless than the Vietnam War when we were afraid of communism ruining our country when there was NO precedence of it happening nor no verifiable prediction. All these other terrorist attacks are in response to this war, not in spite of it. Idiocy...pure and simple idiocy that is all about the coffers of the haves and those moronic enough to align themsevles witht he extreme right.

C/O Catherine Bitelle

This piece, which was supposedly printed in a newspaper a few years ago, has been floating around the Internet for some time. I dunno if it was really written by the mother of a gay son and/or if it was really published but it makes a pretty powerful statement. One of the reasons I believe the drive to stamp out "gay rights" will never succeed is that the anti-gay folks seem unable to cope with the situation in pragmatic, workable terms. It is one thing to say there shouldn't be homosexuality; quite another to explain to those who feel that way what they should do about it. It's like they think if they can condemn homosexuality loudly enough, every gay will suddenly come to his or her senses, stop buying Bette Midler CDs, marry someone of the opposite sex and procreate aplenty. Anyway, here's the letter -- and if it isn't legit, it oughta be...

Letter to the Editor
by Sharon Underwood, Sunday, April 30, 2000
from the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH)

As the mother of a gay son, I've seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people.

I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that.

At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda "could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can't bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about "those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing" asks: "What ever happened to the idea of striving...to be better human beings than we are?"

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

It Couldn't Hurt

Dear God/Buddha/Shiva/Goddess/Travis/Whoever:

Please, oh please, oh pretty pretty please, get me this full time job or else I am going to lose my cookies. If I had a maidenhead to sacrifice, I would, I'll find one.

With Love, Fear and Nervous Hopeful Anticipation,

Fadi, The Camel

Some Good Programming

Just watched the premier of two shows that I have to admit I really liked. Very edgy writing and in-your-face kind of scenarios while making no excuses or apologies. The first is Starved which stars Broady's Laura Benanti and Jackie Hoffman. The show revolves around a group of friends with eating disorders. Trust me, it is good. The second is Always Sunny in Philadelphia which centers around another group of friends who are very Gen X and defunct and aimless. Also, very good. Both on FC. I highly suggest them.

What Would Rev. Martin Niemoller Say?

Prepare for a doozy of a post.

I watched Nonny de la Pena's documentary Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties. I had it saved on my DVR but had not viewed it until tonight and was completley moved and disgusted by what I saw. Yeah, some people no doubt will write it off as some tree-hugging, liberal, ignorant piece of drivel. But the nice thing about it is that it does not choose a political side. It is not about deriding the right and celebrating the left or vice versa. It is about presenting the facts and the stories and the events as they are, as they happened, and as they stand in our post-911 country.

I remember right after 9-11 how the atmosphere at USF, where I was teaching at the time, changed. International students no longer hung around outside, no one was meeting in the library, there was an air of fear, and even the "foreign" students in my class sunk low in their chairs.

I remember all international students being forced to return to the nearest INS office to fill out new paperwork, be registered and often sent back to their home countries as soon as they left the office. We all knew what was up. I was damn lucky to have gotten my green card before that happened. But that doesn't really protect me much.

Almost six years later, with a patriot act under our belt, an attorney general who has turned the country into one run by martial law, a president who takes action before asking questions, and the definition of "enemy combatant" is seriously blurred and flies in the face of the 6th amendment, and I am terrified of what is going to happen next.

I could just as easily be pulled in and questioned for asking these questions publicly and for saying what I have on this site. Not that the fear would deter me. I have always supported and been a strong proponent of the First Amendment. And it would not surprise me as I continually read up on cases where women, children, men and sometimes whole families are arrested and detained at Guantanamo for no other reason than their ethnicity or religious beliefs. Everyone is a target.

It reminds me of the Japanese internment after Pearl Harbor. America's own Auschwitz. Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans were detained on information that turned out to be false and on secret information that ended up to be nothing. Literally. There was NO secret information.

And here we are 60 years later doing it all over again with a dose of McCarthyism as we ask American citizens (those deemed not a threat) to spy on other Americans....Arab-Americans to be exact. And if you don't, off to questioning you go. The gov't is looking at bookstore sales, library checkouts, bank transactions, scuba and aero classes. Everything. No stone left unturned, no child left behind, no Arab left undetained.

These people are held for months, sometimes years, with no communication, no representation, no trial, no release, no food, comfort or daylight; nothing. And for what? Because of this atmosphere of fear. And yes, I understand the need to be proactive and to protect your country, but to what degree and under how much duress colored by paranoia and racial profiling. I'm Armenian and "look" like an Arab; does that mean I am a threat? I guess all my furious tap dancing could be seen as a threat to national security.

I am not sure who I feel sorrier for. I am not even sure if I should feel sorry. We, that is people from other countries, come to this one with the expectation of freedom on many levels and what we end up with is the same shit we faced in our previous homes. Nothing changes. There is an economy of fear and suspicion that informs everything we do and don't say and do. Even the things we are "allowed" to consume through the media is colored by this American Paranoia. Talk about your zeitgeist.

And spare me the American pride crap because I have seen where that leads people and situations. What is American pride nowadays? Being ethnocentric and wholly ignorant? Can you really be that surprised that we are a joke to other countries? The supposed superpower peeing in the corner and whimpering at the slightest noise outside the house?

ACLU Attorney Stephen Rohde sums it up best in his take on Rev. M.N.'s original quote/poem. This is so relevant to where we are today as a country, a national identity and a people, and everything he says, is true:

First they came for the Muslims and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim.

Then they came for the immigrants detaining them indefinitely solely upon the certification of the Attorney General and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an immigrant.

Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their attorneys and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect.

Then they came to prosecute non-citizens before secret military commissions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a non-citizen.

Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and peek" searches and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide.

Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and surveillance of domestic religious and political groups and I didn't speak up because I no longer participated in any groups.

Then they came to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without any charges and without access to lawyers, and I didn't speak up because I would never be arrested.

Then they came to institute TIPS, the " Terrorism Information and Prevention System," recruiting citizens to spy on other citizens, and I didn't speak up because I was afraid.

Then they came to institute Total Information Awareness, collecting private data on every man, woman and child in America, and I didn't speak up because I couldn't do anything about it.

Then they came for immigrants and students from selective countries luring them under the requirement of "special registration" as a ruse to seize them and detain them, and I didn't speak up because I was not required to register.

Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it only aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies and I didn't speak up . . . because I didn't speak up.

Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Cruz

Well, I finally got back into the gym today after a week of at home work-outs. Only so many crunches and thera-band exercises I could do before I started to feel like a heffer. I miss running with The Hag and Piranha. At least I now only have 20 pounds to go to hit my goal. I would love to be 10 pounds beneath my goal, but I do not think it is going to happen as my muscle mass outweighs my fat mass.

I am feeling rather out of place. No apparent reason. I just know that the next six months are going to be insane for me. This is the last week I am going to have any kind of time off until mid-January. I am going to be balancing two shows, teaching 10 classes, working on club med, directing my very first show, and trying not to piss off my friends by not seeing them. Strangely enough, I have everything scheduled down to a T. The beauty is, if I get that full-time position, half of my worries are gone and I can breath a lot more. But since I do not foresee that happening...hell it will be.

But, I will be saving and stockpiling money (I hope) so I can pay off some bills and move move move. I am getting weary of life around here and of people. Not all of them, just some of them. As much as I love analyzing people in my own head and revisiting my old mind-fucking days, I simply don't enjoy it as much as I used to. Why waste my time on people who are just sorry and sad. And I mean that is the most rhetorical sense. Trust me, these people are sorry. I feel sorry for them because of the way they behave. I speak of specifically four people.

I am also really frustrated with things in general. Lately, I find that even the smallest things set me off. Not sure why. I feel confused, kind of. I have all these projects I am trying to complete and get started and not enough hours in the day. Again, it all comes down to the full-time position. A real salary, less credit hours to teach, benefits, and more time to do the things I want to do. I like adjuncting, don't love it, but I would like something with more permanence and stability.

Ok, I am getting out of Chez Pity Party and taking my order with me because I am starting to disgust myself.