Another dense paragraph from Noam Chomsky that you will no doubt skip over and I don't blame you.

Today I sent off another graduate school application, and to mark the occasion I thought I'd share some of Noam Chomsky's thoughts on academia. (Why not my own thoughts on academia? Because I am lazy.)
This particular chunk is taken from the middle of a conversation in which a woman is asking Mr. Chomsky to comment on the "anti-intellectual" nature of our culture.

The fact is that if you're at a university, you're very privileged. For one thing, contrary to what a lot of people say, you don't have to work all that hard. And you control your own work-- I mean, maybe you decide to work eighty hours a week, but you decide which eighty hours. That makes a tremendous difference: it's one of the few domains where you control your own work. And furthermore, you have a lot of resources-- you've got training, you know how to use a library, you see ads for the books so you know which books are probably worth reading, you know there are declassified documents because you learned that in school somewhere, and you know how to find them because you know how to use a reference library. And that collection of skills and privileges gives you access to a lot of information.
But it has nothing to do with being "intellectual": there are plenty of people in the universities who have all of this stuff, and use all of these things, and they do clerical work... That's in fact most of the scholarship in these fields-- take a look at the monographs sometime, there's not a thought in people's heads. I think there's less real intellectual work going on in a lot of university departments than there is in trying to figure out what's the matter with my car, which requires some creativity.

Roadtrip / Irrational Anger

On Christmas Day my family drove down to Chesapeake to visit our frail old viper of a grandmother. About an hour into the drive my dad yelled "GODDAMNIT!" I had zoned out listening to music, and quickly looked for the car that had cut him off. No car was there, and that scared me.
"What's wrong Dad? Are you okay? Is there something wrong with the car?"
"No, it was just that fucking Hardee's back there."
Puzzled, I look at Sarah, who was ignoring us.
"You mean you hate Hardee's so bad that the sight of one on the side of the road makes you yell?"
"Well I do like their breakfasts, but I wouldn't be caught dead eating their hamburgers. Jesus."

About a year ago on McSweeney's I read a girl's list of things that made her father mad. I liked this, and of course imitated it.

Things My Father Doesn't Like and Will Discuss at Length.
-Hardee's (hamburgers not breakfast sandwichs)
-San Francisco Giants star outfielder Barry Bonds
-Philip Glass
-Oprah.
-Anything healthy.
-The new priest at his old church, who he calls "the Rectum".
- E.T.
-Cramped aisles at the grocery store
-The inferiority of our local Burger King to Burger King franchises in other parts of town
-The Richmond Times-Dispatch
-Texas

On the way home from Chesapeake my dad was speeding, and a cop pulled us over. I won't detail the dialogue, but the officer addressed my father like he was talking to a retarded eight-year-old. As he was writing the ticket he was called away to do something more important.
"I have somewhere more important to be now so I can't write you a ticket," he told us, handing back the license and registration. "Try fifty-five for a change. Merry Christmas."
My dad was relieved, but I was angry, too angry for someone who hadn't received a ticket, who, for that matter, hadn't even been driving.
"Man, FUCK that guy," I yelled once the windows were up and were driving again.
"Andy," said dad, "it's nice of you to take up for me, but calm down a little, okay? I'm just glad he didn't write a ticket."
"Yeah he didn't, but he WANTED TO, the condescending power-crazy motherfucker."

Things I Don't Like and Will Discuss at Length.
-Cops

Jacob Pepper-- totally sweet dude

Imagine if you will a very tall, very skinny young man wearing dark rimmed glasses, an Army coat, and some fingerless gloves with skeleton hands printed on them. Imagine that he has a mohawk and is laughing really hard and going "OH MAN! THAT'S SO TOTALLY SWEET!"
The person you are imagining is named Jacob Pepper and he is in charge of magazines at my store. He is one of the most endearing people I have ever met. My friend Jon described it best I think when he said that, "Jacob always acts like a puppy who just discovered that he's got a tail. He's like, 'Oh sweet man, look at my awesome tail!'"

Two brief stories to give you a better idea of what he's like:

On election day, Jacob came into the receiving room excited and wanted to know if anyone had seen a picture of John Kerry when he was in his twenties. Everyone had.
"Oh man," said Jacob, "he looked like a TOTALLY SWEET DUDE!"

Today at work Tim Kaine, the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, came in to do some Christmas shopping. Jacob was at the cash registers to ring him up, and had absolutely no idea who he was. As Jacob put his books into a shopping bag a passerby wished Mr. Kaine luck, which confused Jacob a little.
"Luck with what?"
"Oh," said Mr. Kaine, "I'm the Democratic candidate for Governor this year."
"DUDE!" said Jacob, "THAT'S TOTALLY AWESOME!"

"But what if he has to pee?"

When I was little I had this best friend Danny who lived across the street from me. We did lots of stuff together: turned over cinder blocks to look at the bugs underneath, played hide and seek with Bob the navy Seal who lived down the street (Bob would climb twenty feet up into the trees and stay there perfectly still for thirty minutes), tried to ride his Weinmariner Gunther, and Danny watched his sister Bevin knock my front teeth out during a game of Uno. I told him about Santa Claus, and he told me about sex.
Danny telling me about sex is a good story, one that I will relate here for those who haven't heard it already.

One morning I went across the street to visit Danny.
"Hello Mrs. Richardson," I said to Danny's mother when she answered the door. "Can Danny play?"
"Sure Andy, come on in. Him and Mary are up in his room."
So I went upstairs and knocked on Danny's bedroom door, which was locked.
"Danny?"
"Go away."
"Why?"
"Me and Mary are having sex."
"Oh. Okay."
So I went back downstairs.
"Bye Mrs. Richardson!" I called.
"Seeya Andy!" she called back.

I went back home and sat down in front of the television, where my mother found me soon after.
"Andy, what are you doing back? Weren't you going over to Danny's?"
"I did, but he's busy."
"Busy?"
"Yeah, him and Mary are having sex."
"I doubt that very much."
Six year olds get indignant easily. "No, he is! Really, he told me."
"Do you know what sex is Andy?"
So actually my mother told me about sex, but Danny was the first person I heard say the word.

The next day I told Danny all about sex, and of course he was shocked. It turns out that one night Mrs. Richardson, who had divorced Mr. Richardson not long before, brought a man home to spend the night. The morning after, when Danny banged on the door demanding to know when she would get up, she told him,
"Go away! We're having sex!"
"What's that?" asked Danny.
"It's what boys and girls do when they're alone together."
So naturally, when Mary came to visit Danny told her about it, and they had sex on the floor of his closet. That is to say, they sat there quietly and felt grown-up.
"It was kind of boring," Danny told me later of his first time. "Mary kept asking when we could do something else, but I kept saying we hadn't been doing it long enough. Then she got mad and we watched You Can't Do That On Television."

Sandwiches as a Means of Personal Expression

Yesterday while I was putting off working on my graduate school applications I watched the two hour extravaganza of baseless prediction and mindless enthusiasm that is ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown. One featured story this Sunday was Chris Berman's trip to Pittsburgh, where he visited a restaurant named Peppi's. Peppi's serves a sandwich named for Pittsburgh's breakout rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, a sandwich designed specifically to embody the qualities of the athlete for which it was named.
A cook at Peppi's explained the "Roethlisberger" in detail--
"Basically we wanted something big and beefy. So we've got your steak. And then we added scrambled eggs, because Roethlisberger is a good scrambler. And then we top it off with American cheese, because he's an All-American."

This reminded me of my friend Brendan, who used to make sandwiches for a restaurant called Belle Kuisine. One day when the management was otherwise occupied they asked Brendan to come up with a "sandwich of the day." Brendan, not wanting to worry about making a new sandwich, invented the "Brendan."
To make a "Brendan," first toast a croissant. Then spread crunchy peanut butter on each half. Then spread honey on one side and mustard on the other. Finally, put exactly 5 pepperoncinis on the bottom half, put the two halves together and serve.
Two people ordered this, and Brendan made it for them. There were no complaints.
I like to imagine Brendan preparing his sandwich and explaining to Chris Berman why each ingredient is added.
"Then we toast the croissant, cause you know, I'm sophisticated, and also sort of crusty and hard to get to know. Then we put on the peanut butter, cause its so simple and hearty, the way I am. The honey's too obvious to comment on. The mustard and the pepperoncinis are the important part, they're what make it a Brendan. They give it my characteristic 'bite.' When you sink your teeth into my sandwich and make this face like, 'Ew damn, what the hell is that?!', that's when you know you've got a 'Brendan!'"

Jovial Tibetan Retard

Back in August my journal hit a dry patch. I couldn't think of anything good to write, I became more dissatisfied with what I was posting, and for the months of September and October I hardly posted anything.
On election night, in a brief lull between fits of sobbing, I decided to make a brief post about my unhappiness. I made several more posts of a political nature that week, and was thrilled to see people begin commenting regularly on my posts. Some people wrote to say they agreed with me. A douchebag named JTR wrote to tell me he didn't want me to argue until I looked up the facts (I still haven't looked them up JTR! Not cause I'm lazy, there's just a lot of them.). A co-worker of mine made reference to this awesome impression he does of Marlon Brando at work all the time (Luck be a lady tonight! Sing with me Larry! No, you're off tempo.).
So I really like comments. I have thought that maybe the key to getting comments was posting entries of a political nature, but I don't want to further offend my Republican friends, several of whom are still pissed at me after I claimed that I wouldn't be friends with them anymore. Also, I've let the more political part of me get a little numb since the election, something I remember happening in 2000 as well.
So, because I don't feel up to being angry about the assfucking the working class is receiving from the Republican party (the working class doesn't appear to be angry, why should I?), I will merely say that I like comments, and would probably enjoy it if you wrote one. To leave a comment, click on the little link that says "comment." Remember, it's more fun if you leave your name! Don't be a chickenshit and write initials like JTR for me to guess at (Jive Turkey Rapist? Jiggly Tiger Rectum?).