Alienation aka "renting your time and skills"

[pan]

Marx was right. Not in his utopian eschatology that ensured a workers' paradise, but in his analysis of capitalism.

Just looked in my job search folder and realized that I have submitted 15 applications in the past month. The groovy hippie college down the road that prides itself upon valuing individuals, etc, has completely blown us off after the phone interview that was full of standard issue, cookie cutter questions and interviewers who seemed to be more annoyed that they had to take the time to do this than engage in any exchange with the professionals on the other end of the line.

Ms. Medusa and myself both applied to a J.C. in CA wine country. She got the call indicating that she was one of 13 culled to pay their own full expenses for an interview trip. I decided to come along an make a weekend out of it. Last night (in)human resources called to say that they had made a mistake and then disinvited her because it was me that they wanted to come.

Was shocked when the mail brought a courtesy letter acknowledging receipt of application materials from a U. "Common" courtesy in the hunt to find a renter of your time and skills is exceedingly rare these days.

It will only get worse as more layoffs and less job creation accelerates. Who is going to be the new Woody Guthrie?

[pan]

We are packing. Got the U-haul reserved for July 13. Stopped teaching at Barefoot Studios at the end of June and handed the keys over to the Barefoot Collective to take over in July. Had my exit interview at the County Art bureaucrat job - going in one more day so I can collect holiday pay for July 4th blow everything up with fireworks bought on the Rez' from the "Injuns who got it so good 'cuz they have special rights and they should just get over it 'cuz they are raking in the dough off the casinos and why should they get to fish with nets and sell tobbacky" holiday.

We close on the new house on Monday. Will be happy to "own" our own house rather than rent. The wife is concerned that she is no responsible for getting me work at the University - I am trying not to think that, after over 30 years, my career in dance and interdisciplinary arts could be over.

New avatar - Mr. Potatohead is in recognition of our move to the Potato State of Idaho. The old avatar, Ozomatli was the logo of Barefoot Studios and, since we have closed that business, it is time to have a new look.

People keep asking us "are you excited?" - fact is, we are scared about moving again to a foreign culture and going back to academia which had previously chewed us up and spit us out.

[pan]

Why guns shouldn't be brought to tenure meetings.......

A biology professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who authorities say opened fire at a faculty meeting is facing a murder charge after the shooting spree that left three dead and three wounded.
[....]
a meeting to discuss the tenure status of another faculty member who got angry and started shooting.
[.....]
Bishop had been denied tenure and that may have led to the shooting.

There are more than a few jerks in academia who I have dealt with who deserved to be put in the cross-hairs.....Good thing I just go home and drink rather than bring a gun to meetings.

[BO]

Pretty surprised to see that the perp was a woman albeit she looks like she could be a carpet-muncher (lezbo). Oh well, she has tenure now.

[pan]

BO - I guess you haven't heard about 'lipstick lesbians', very attractive, very fem.....

Twenty three years ago the shooter "accidentally discharged" a shotgun into her brother's chest.

[waldopaper]

murder in the halls of academe... it's turtles all the way down.

today i gotta write a sheaf of bullshit justifying my job so some fucking committee can justify theirs. this will take time away from reading the wee spiders' webs... but we got priorities, y'see. it just keeps getting stupider. i'm not sure there is a bottom to it. A new Guthrie is on the way...

...but I aint him.

[pan]

We nicknamed the Chair in the Theatre & Dance dept "Professor Turtle" at a previous Uni I was tenure-line at - both for his odd mannerism of stretching his neck by projecting his head forward and for his complete unwillingness to take a stand on anything without fully considering if he could duck and cover and have plausible deniability.

The assoc prof in Dance who was drinking buddy (in cruder terms we called them butt buddies) with the Dean had numerous complaints about sexual harassment from students - Prof Turtle listened to them and then pulled his head into his shell - later popping it out to tell me that he was surprised that B.B. had gotten away with it.

B.B. was jealous of Ms. Medusa because he wanted to be my b.f.f. (best friend forever). He was also annoyed that, although he was hired with an MFA and an ABD (all but dissertation) and I 'only' had an MA and an MFA (considered the terminal degree in Dance) I came in at a higher salary. He kept harping on it until finally, Medusa had had enough and she said "the only thing your PhD means is that you used more Vaseline".

The final straw was when he was working on an anthology and, after asking for rewrites of articles 5 different times, including completely changing the central thesis of one, we pulled them all. Deanie Weenie cited some arcane rule after the fact to deny us travel money to present the articles at an International Conference. And, when it came to my 4 year review, Turtle wrote a character assassination full of libel and lies. He also slandered Medusa's work ethic (which is astounding) in a private meeting with me.

I wrote a 100 page rebuttal to Deanie Weenie and Turtle's letters (my committee - which the Dean changed the rules to force his Butt Buddy onto - managed to control his toxic efforts and wrote a glowing recommendation). Clearly I had them by the short hairs legally - and Deanie was already involved in a couple of law suits regarding his egregious abuse of power in tenure granting - so they took away my very successful classes, made it clear that I would never again be able to mount large creative works there, and started to let me know that 'because of the economic crisis' my tenure-line position might be cut - 'coincidentally' in exactly the same year that I would go up for tenure.

I didn't bring a gun to a meeting. I quit, sold my house, and moved half-way across the country without a job. Now I get paid less than quarter wages for working half-time at a third-rate college. I never pulled a trigger but there were more than a few times I prayed that Butt Boy, Turtle and Deanie Weenie would die horrible deaths.

[pan]

From Wall Street to Skank Street -- Poking the frog at Gunther's Garage (Joe Bageant)

The petty right and the bumbling left find themselves unexpectedly meeting one another these days, as they navigate the craters of our bombed out economic landscape. Were it not for the ideological war in progress (it's not a cultural war, no matter what the university pundits say, it's a capitalist state sponsored ideological war), they would probably form a powerful combined populist movement that would scare Washington right out of its silk shorts. Naturally, political strategists on both sides do everything possible to keep the rank and file from discovering the growing overlap of liberal and conservative thinking (or in some cases, nonthinking).

[pan]

Brilliant speech by high school valedictorian

I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer - not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition - a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I'm scared.

[pan]

The full speech is found here

Showed this to Ms. Medusa who immediately suggested that we give this as our first assignments in our classes. I'm definitely going to do that.

[BO]

The young lady is a modern-day Spartacus.

You have to wonder how her teachers and school administrators reacted to her speech. The teachers (prison guards) undoubtably empathized while the administrators (ruling class) were probably wishing they could kill her.

"Well we got no choice
All the girls and boys
Makin all that noise
'Cause they found new toys
Well we can't salute ya
Can't find a flag
If that don't suit ya
That's a drag

School's out for summer
School's out forever
School's been blown to pieces"

--Alice Cooper

Thanks for posting the article. It should go viral.

[pan]

What a shocker!

Ms. Medusa quit her doctoral program when she looked at the prospects for a committee.....critical cultural analysis of the post-human doesn't really get much support from the guys in Communication who are all about counting column inches.

[waldopaper]

What is the point of life when you're poop?

Sorry... been reading about composting pottys (again) and surprise! It's a scam. Most of 'em anyway. And... (wait-wait- this is relevant!) it turns out that we simply have to re-think the way we doo our doody. The mix of liquids and solids. Use your imagination. Most companies would rather sell overpriced shit than tell us something we don't want to hear. And that... unfortunately... includes universities.

Preparing for the plunge back into next week. Gonna have another go at it. Not really sure how to keep doing this. What is the point of life when you're poop?