the Border

My friend Tom went crazy.  It seems to have happened overnight, but as information leaks out it's pretty obvious it was a long time coming and not the first time.  He's currently hospitalized until he stabilizes and is sent on to wherever the authorities decide to send him.
The signs were there all along although no one seems to want to deal with that.  He always had this "hey man, don't get so intense about it" attitude anytime the conversation got serious, which drove me to fucking distraction.  The problem was, his true self betrayed him, and in his various moments of weakness he showed that he was wound tighter internally than anyone.
I understand the complex nature of protecting ones inner-self with rough exteriors; I've spent the greater part of my life doing the same thing.  But I've gradually found in recent years the ability to let my guard down and show the soft underbelly that lies beneath what was once an impenetrable shell.  Although I'm not quite there, just showing a glimmer of something that's been hidden for so long, even from myself, has been and continues to be truly freeing.
For Tom, the depths of the facade are what in the end brought him down. The caricature he drew of himself for the public and for himself became so far removed from his true self,  that his mind could no longer keep the two in coexistence.  Like a rubber band, the distance between his outward expression of self and his inner, true self finally got stretched too far and snapped, sending him spiraling out into a land of internal confusion and even more troubling, into a public with no idea how to handle it. May this be a cautionary tale for all of us who play loose and fast with what we project onto the world.  Liars and charlatans, if not discovered by the world that surrounds them, will in time be discovered by their inner self. And the inner-self is in the end the true judge of who we are.

San Francisco Sayonara

Back in 1990 I moved to San Francisco.  I loved the idea of the living in the hippy mecca, and although it ended up being more Kurt Cobain than Jerry Garcia, it still just felt like like home.  I spent the next year partying on the Haight, 16th street and SOMA, meeting like-minded crazy people, drinking whiskey, and snorting and popping whatever I could find. In other words it was exactly what this small town kid, who was looking to disappear into an urban "scene", wanted.
For the next 15 years, I spent time in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Vermont and New York City, but always returned to the city that had just the right balance of radical politics and blue collar sensibility with a sprinkling of old school glamour. It was my home and I bragged about it to anyone who would listen.
But in my final stint by the bay I started to feel the changes that had been percolating for years.  Though I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and I fell into faulty reasoning like "it's a young person's city now", I knew something was different.  Sure people my age were busy gentrifying the East Bay,  pushing out the original tenants there like we had the latinos in the mission decades before, but the change seemed deeper than that.
Besides my own evolution, I realized that the real change was a change in priorities.  Back in the day we lived in small dwellings and spent our money on good food, drink and going out with friends.  And understand that when I say "we",  I mean people of all ages, races and socioeconomic brackets.  Did some of us wish for more space? Sure. But as city dwellers we had made the choice that the convenience of a good steak, a nice cocktail or 10 or a night at the theatre outweighed those desires.  If we wanted space and quiet, we could always move to the suburbs.  Now the priorities of these "should be surburbanites" have been pushed into cities like San Francisco, where people constantly complain about noise, congestion and late night drinking.  Some may call it the evolution of the city but it's not.  It's bullshit.  If you think it's too noisy living in SOMA then guess what? There are plenty of places in the south bay for you to sleep at night. Take your fucking kids there and leave the nighttime fun to the cities.
As I pull up the stakes again, and as I know now it will be my last time in San Francisco I say thank you to my adopted home town.  I hope you can survive for decades to come.  Thanks for allowing me my 20 year social experiment.  I hope you find a way to return to your former glorious self.

Stranger

One of the most difficult things about moving back to the US is seeing how people lives have progressed do to their staying in one place vs mine from moving around.  I see friends building their own businesses, moving their ways up the whatever business and professional ladders they're involved with and it makes me feel like somehow I've missed something.  As I've been exploring outside the US I can't help but think sometimes that it has all been based on some type of escapist premise, and not the romantic vision that I let others believe it is.

Any regrets I've had for the life I've led to this point are few and far between.  I chose a less traveled road a long time ago and deal with the consequences of those decisions.  I do get caught up in my head at times with a minor self loathing for not being more responsible with my handling of my personal affairs; I spent years pushing people and opportunities away in often hurtful ways.  My misanthropic tendencies have been exposed and intensified with the assistance of mind-altering substances and rage.

On the other side, however much a piece of me wants to be able to live a more passive and singularly focused existence, I realize that that is probably not the life in store for me.  I have been hiding in the shadows for 20 years now.  I feel like a vessel that has been emptied of the past and is ready to fill up on act 2 of this life.

View from a jobs conference

Ah yes…the joy of finding work. 

American men make horrible shoe choices.  The suits are ok, but for god sakes, wearing payless shoes or those black “all sport” training shoes with a suit is unacceptable.  You look like the unibomber or that crazy Sociology professor I had in college who couldn’t make it through a 60 minute class without a smoke break.  And you’re 30 years old.  Please do not create the next generation of educators who students make fun of when they’re drunk and stoned at their weekend keg-parties. You are not just filling some pod that says you have to look like a complete dork to be an educator.

Women stress much more than men.  The women here look like they are going to start crying.  Especially the young ones. And, of course, they are continually scoping each other out and giving the old up and down to each other as they pass.  The woman next to me keeps taking deep breaths. She may not want to manage her stress with more coffee. What is that, cup 5 this hour honey. Really. Read the books. Caffeine and stress do not work. I have to give it to her though; it looks like she’s getting a lot of meetings set up. Hopefully she won’t run screaming into the streets before the first one.

Older women with teaching experience seem to think looking professional is all it takes. No wonder kids always hate school.  Where is your computer? Can you talk video games or do you just lecture kids on how bad they are and how good books are.  Sorry sport; 13 year olds don’t give a shit about pride and prejudice unless you can somehow tie it in to something they understand. And finger wagging doesn’t count.

Bow ties are still in? Christ, when I was in school, bow ties were a sign of pretentious asshole teachers to avoid.  Now it’s back to somehow being a sign of intelligence and style.  Come on: If you’re 30 years old or younger, please get rid of this shit once and forall.  If you want to be Andy Rooney then go work at the fucking Post or the Times.  When my child gets to school age, you’d better believe I’ll be checking the school to see if any teachers wears a bowtie. If so, forget it.

Young guys don’t give a shit.  The 20 somethings don’t even seem to care about this whole thing.  They talk about facebook and where they’re getting beers afterwards but nothing about jobs or interviews.  I hope for my sake that we’re interviewing at the same places because it won’t be close; unless the school is looking to hire single 25 year olds for 20,000/year who don’t mind living with 4 of their buddies or think it’s great to live in a dorm with 20 11^th grade lacrosse players.

Too much eye contact.  Dude, eye contact is important but too much is creepy.  It tells me that you’re not thinking about responses or what I’m saying; you’ve read some manual that says eye contact means that you are a “real” guy.  Stop it. It’s not a stare down contest and I’m not in middle school.