The Gig

It's all a blur. I was so exhausted I don't remember much of the first two sets, which passed in a surreal haze. I felt I wasn't playing with any passion, like I was a robot. And singing wasn't comfortable yet--still not completely recovered from the dread sore throat a couple weeks back. We played a set of jigs and I got lost about a third of the way in and never found my way back. Ooops.

When we got the bar the stage wasn't set up yet. We waited an hour and a half for a couple to finish their beers and leave so we could move their table and start putting the gear together; then there was a mad rush to get set in time, and very little time for a sound-check. So we had some tech issues for the first set. But a couple of our new songs came off well.

This is from the 3rd set--I realized during the break that I hadn't eaten since about10:30am, and the bar kitchen was closed. Fortunately Cha had a Chic-fil-a sandwich in her car from a meeting she'd hosted earlier in the day. This restored by soul. Funny how I can still pull off a reasonable Rick O with a lung full of blech and a scratchy throat.

Rock

Tomorrow night @ Mick O'Shea's--Move Like Seamus returns after a six-week hiatus.

Multiple shows are coming down the pike at multiple venues in March, April, May and June. Stay tuned for updates!

Day 54

Man, I ain't slept since Monday night and it's starting to catch up with me a bit. I very uncharacteristically left my keys in the faculty restroom door, and didn't realize it until I left an IEP meeting for a student I have never had in my class. I rushed upstairs only to find out that one of the students found my keys and turned them in. I'm quite lucky that my room wasn't opened, my laptop taken, and my car driven off the Bay Bridge.

Tomcat is an overly developed girl in my sixth grade class. Frequently I have to grab eighth grade boys by the neck and haul them out of my room last period like panting puppies as they try to "get with" her. She adores the attention she gets, and flaunts her sexuality like a weapon. The biggest difference, in fact, between middle school girls and boys in B'more and the middle school I grew up in is the comfort with frank sexuality at an early age. When I was in middle school we of course talked about sex and dreamed about it and spent hours wailing away, but even the most attractive and developed girls and boys were awkward and geeky about sex before high school. Kids in B'more don't go through any awkward confused stage, at least in my experience. They are unafraid of sexuality, and are quite open about using it to manipulate each other. Tomcat uses her wares to get what she wants, and tries to use it on male faculty too. I'm always telling her to back off, to keep her hands to herself, and to pull her pants up. Today she was shaking her ass at boys in the hall and she actually pulled her pants halfway down her butt in my classroom, exposing herself. (Some of the sixth grade boys in my class became the awkward, gawky boys with which I was familiar at the sight. One of them drew laughter by saying "gross!"). Now I'm going to go talk to a counselor and a social worker about her--I don't want to involve administrators because they'll punish her for something for which she likely needs a frank one-on-one discussion over. If the social worker decides to involve the administrators, then I'll inform them.

I think Tomcat is acting out because a new girl transferred into our class who is even prettier and who is even more well-endowed. I had no trouble from her until two days ago when the new girl started. Tomshay didn't do any work but she would take one of my Bluford books and sit in the corner reading. Now she jumps on tables, touches boys, exposes herself, and screams at the top of her lungs.

All this after not sleeping for days is quite surreal. I hope I sleep tonight, because I've got a beastly long day tomorrow, what with the Mick O'Shea's gig and all.

Day 53

Oh, man--killer insomnia last night. WTF? Must be that I haven't had any wine or good tea since Friday last week.

I was NOT in the mood for teaching today, but go through somehow, breaking up a couple fights along the way. I even put a thug in a headlock and pulled him off another student. He was cool with it though, cuz we tight, know I'm sayin'?

De, from my first period, said "I seen you Mr. G."

"What?" I asked.

"I seen you lookin' at Ms. B's butt when she walkin' down the hall."

Ms. B is about 180 pounds past the point where I'd watch her butt. I'm not judging her--I'm just saying.

"Oh yeah, De? Well I'ma gonna pack you now. I seen your shoes in the dollar bin at CVS..."

Day 52

The Big Cheese is mad at me because I wrote passes for a couple students to get water today. "I made a directive that students were not to get passes for water. Kids don't need water!"

I disagree. Kids need water, and regularly. Especially in my room, which bakes their brains at a steady 93 degrees for 90 minutes. And I don't consider a late Friday afternoon page over the intercom saying "please limit hall passes to students" to be a "directive" that students shouldn't get passes for water. A directive is typed up and official.

But I understand why the Big Cheese is on edge. We had a group of adults from the 'hood bust into the building today looking to settle a vendetta with a student--they trashed some furniture in the main office and six squad cars and a paddy wagon showed to stop a near-riot. And then there was the small matter of a bathroom fire and an evacuation. Kids outside in shirtsleeves with an 18 windchill? Priceless!

I just lock my room and handle my business. My kids' benchmark exam scores were substantially higher, but only six out of 45 passed the test with "proficient" scores (ZERO passed the first). I'll take double-digit increases in scores, but would have liked to see more make the leap to 60%. Those who did got paid--I budgeted $100 per class and doled it out equally to those who passed the test. First I had to make sure they could make it home with $33 without getting bainked or jumped or mugged.

#9

A book of the very first order, of a quality such that I'm sure it will change the way I live. I thought John Williams' other two novels (Augustus and Butcher's Crossing) were exquisite, but having moved through William Stoner's life in a few hundred finely-wrought pages I now see Williams at the top of his form.

Can education rescue us from a life shallowly lived, or do we simply appreciate more fully the ways we're trapped? Can knowledge and skill insulate us from Nature, or do we benefit from them only in feeling our sufferings more keenly?

Stoner is top-shelf, next to The Ambassadors and To the Lighthouse and Joyce's "The Dead." I find myself curiously unable to comment--as though I need to absorb it more.

My old school

Man, the kids at the Book never get a break...I don't know that any students were victims but this is a devastating revelation regardless. I sat on meetings with this guy.

And one of my former co-workers got trampled by a stampede of 8th graders there this week. She's pretty banged up. Rumor has it they're shutting the school down after this year. Despite its history and illustrious past, it might be time to do so.