Surfing. Hurts.

Stretch your bodies kids. Yes, wear your sunscreen, but for god's sake: stretch. I have read countless interviews with Gerry Lopez in which he describes waking at dawn and immediately working through a yoga routine. This is something I'd like to say that I do. But christ, I'm really stiff first thing in the morning. I'd also like to do push ups and sit ups every day, and occasionally I do, sometimes for an entire week straight. But, in reality, I'm just not that into working out. And as a painful and painfully easy to predict result, I hurt myself. Most recently I have angered one of the (small) muscles in my lower back, something that happens at least twice a year, enough to annoy and occasionally terrify me, but not enough to motivate me to become the next Taylor Knox. And it really, really hurts. Wrenching your back is supposed to be an old man's injury, so now my mortality is screaming me in the face. What would I do if I truly injured myself and couldn't surf anymore? How then would I justify my existence and hipper-than-thou attitude?

Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Let's hope it doesn't come to me having to bodysurf or ride a longboard for the rest of my life because of a lazy or careless injury (this is not to disparage loggers and bodysurfers--but hey, not my bag). But, I don't think I'll be taking back health for granted anymore. . . oh hell, who am I kidding. I'm absolutely going to do that. But I am writing this post while perched on a yoga ball, so that counts for something, right?

Out of the Shadows

Until recently, I have tried to keep separate my surfing from my literary interests. This started when I began to take the idea of grad school seriously, right around the end of my junior year in college. I started to resent surfing, at first just a little bit, then quickly and unstoppably. I found myself saying things to people like, "the life of a surfer is so limiting." I know why I said that then, but surfing was not really to blame: I was. Tired of surfing foggy, cold, blown-out closeouts, and even more tired of the cutesy small-townness of California's Central Coast (capitalization intended and deserved), I confused my own limited lifestyle for that of the surfing life in general. I could have moved to a more wave-rich coastline (though my attempt at doing so in San Diego failed) or embraced other elements of a more varied kind of surferdom. Trips more exotic than Baja would have been helpful here, or perhaps wider experimentation with board design and waves could have further, uh, stoked the stoke. But, who cares? For one or all of these reasons, I grew bored with myself as a surfer and moved on. Or so I thought.

I never really gave up on surfing entirely of course. Even while living with Margaret in Paris I harbored thoughts of getting myself to Biarritz, if only to see Hossegor, that dream of all beachbreak dreams. And carefully packed with all of my furniture, clothing, and bookish detritus in the back of the rented pickup I drove up to San Francisco for the Big Move to grad school, were my cherished Parmenters. But then they sat unused, saving of course the rare, hot autumnal afternoon glass-off days that happened infrequently my first fall in the City. Still, surf magazines were scoffed at more often than read in this period, with my radar honed more on Hayden White's conception of narrative structure, and with wrestling with whatever the hell Foucault was trying to say. When professors asked what I had done in my early 20s while my contemporaries were undergraduates, and I answered "surfing," they nearly always tried to goad me back into the water. Maybe they were trying to tell me something about my soon-to-be discovered lack of academic conviction. But, perhaps to save my ego, I don't think so. I think they saw the writing on the wall in terms of academic jobs for one thing, but possibly and more importantly, they recognized in a way I didn't, but in which academics and dreamers are more likely than most to be tuned-in to, the beauty of a life devoted to something like surfing. After all, there are few things more impractical than basing a life on mastering an obscure scholarly topic, then moving from city to city desperately chasing a paycheck for lecturing to bored undergrads; except perhaps for devoting a life to riding waves. And here's the kicker: when it came time for me to move on to the PhD, something for which I had devoted myself to for a number of years, I balked. I fucking couldn't do it. I didn't want to. I hadn't surfed on a daily basis in three years, but, there it was. I was still first and foremost a surfer. I couldn't leave it for the less sexy, but more complicated and exotic mistress of being an academic intellectual, probably living in Kansas, or maybe Ohio, or hell, even New York City. I had my affair with the non-surfing, outside world, but, like Tom Blake, my god was in the ocean.

I quit academia about a year and half ago. I'm once again fit, tan, blonde. I don't regret my time away from the water at all. In ways, it has made me a better surfer. I'm less concerned with turns, more focused on the glide, which of course means I'm going faster and my turns are better: linked, critical, flowing. I'm mostly riding a beautiful Pat Rawson-shaped 6'2" that catches waves without trying, accelerates on its own, and goes straight-fucking up, all in a relaxed, Cadillac-esque 2+1 setup. I love Ocean Beach, though it intimidated me a bit at first, and have had some of the best waves of my life in that occasionally edenic cauldron. I'm in Santa Cruz a couple times a month, high-lining around her points and reefs, growing tired of the crowds; fantasizing a move to Aptos.

And what's better: I'm finally joining surfing and writing. I'm a fool for not recognizing the possibility earlier, probably foolish for embracing it now. Yet, it's a natural fit. I'm far more interested in the history of surfing, with experimental boards and characters, surf spots and trends, than I ever was before, and each time I take off on a wave nowadays, I'm aware of how that history led to my riding that particular wave in that particular way. I've somehow talked my way into working with a famous surfing writer, helping him with his latest project, learning and hopefully shoehorning my way into an existence as One Who Writes About Surfing.

I don't know where this leads. But, then again, I don't know where anything leads. But I will write about surfing. And I will get better at both. There are aspects of the two disciplines that I can improve at: tuberiding, and a stronger written voice. Stay tuned.

The death of words...

This morning's "Fresh Air" broadcast featured past interviews with two recently dead writers and critics: Reynolds Price, the much-loved southern novelist; and Wilfrid Sheed, a British critic-cum-nonfiction writer and novelist. Both of these men were about 80 years old, and though they came from different countries, their particular ways of speaking struck me as being quite similar. They each seemed to delight in fastening words together, as if their specific points were secondary to the ways in which they were presented--poetically, thoughtfully, and with a graceful ease. While listening to the broadcast, I was struck by how these men seemed to speak for a different time; the language they made use of and the care with which they composed their statements seemed old fashioned, but also much much better than how almost anyone speaks under the age of, say, 60.

I got to thinking about who would speak for today's American literary presence, and the first author who jumped to mind was Jonathan Franzen. I suppose that, aside maybe from Don Delillo, Franzen is the most respected--at least on a worldwide popular and pseudo high-minded scale--American author today. Compared with Price and Sheed, Franzen's spoken English is sadly inferior. I listened to a clip from a radio interview with Franzen late in 2010, and there is not even close to the same command, confidence, and resonant joy in language as evidenced by writers of ages past.

What does this all mean? I am not sure exactly, but I suspect that there are historical causes at play here. The most interesting possibility is not the most obvious: the postmodern (I know I know: not supposed to use that hackneyed term anymore) condition has eroded a reverence for words that once consumed men and women of letters. That makes me sound like Allan Bloom, but, well, there you have it. Then of course there is the reliance on technology to speed up communication, a condition that obliterates subtlety and joy in the name of efficiency, speed, and access.

I fear that the worst part of the 60s, namely the attempted eradication of a sense of good, better, and best in cultural expression, was so successful that we have lost the ability or interest in promoting a learned mastery of words, all in order to include all points of view.

First interesting development

Today I accepted an internship as an editor and (hopefully) writer for the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's magazines. I guess there is life after grad school. I have long harbored the dream of one day writing about baseball for a living, but that seemed even more of a stretch than becoming a professor. Not that this internship leads directly down that path, but, at least I'm closer than I was a week ago. Writing about baseball in an official capacity--woah.

Here is another wonderful video; I think it is the best I've seen about the misery of humanities PhDs in training...

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1944515

Great video.

We well-read people are better than you.

Macbook Air. Politics.

So last week I bought a Macbook Air. The 11in. über cool model. The model that is designed specifically to draw envious stares. Sure, the thinness presents all sorts of practical benefits, but really, nobody buys the Air for that. Those of us willing to spend $1000 on a computer like this are concerned with aesthetics first and foremost. Plus, once you play with one, it is instantly apparent that you can never again go back to the world of regular, non-Air computers. I do not care in the slightest how much more powerful the Macbook Pro is. I do not care that I could have bought a super-PC capable of rendering the fabric of space time for the same price as my diddly little Air. I just had to have this machine.

On a darker note, I want to take this time to announce my complete and total annoyance with the way the horrible tragedy of the Tucscon shooting has turned into a...wow this Air is thin. Did I mention that I bought a new Macbook Air? And it is so quiet. And so fast. And so...

And Another Thing

Tax cuts. Ok, dear republican friends, colleagues: G.W. Bush explained to Matt Lauer on Monday evening that the tax cuts that he is so famously reviled for were necessary to prevent an economic disaster following the events of 9/11. Ok, fine, so let's give that bullshit idea the benefit of the doubt. Why then were they still necessary in, say, 2006, when the economy was roaring along and the Dow was climbing to previously unheard of heights? What argument could possibly have been made to keep them in place then? Oh, to maintain the status quo you say, my republican apologist friend. Things were good, so why mess with taxes? Fair enough. But then, WHY THE HELL WOULD WE EXTEND THE TAX CUTS NOW? You cannot have it both ways Mr. Boehner. If the tax cuts should be kept in place, because without them American businesses can't create jobs, then where are all the jobs that those tax cuts are creating? Not sure why I bother with these rants. Maybe Mr. Boehner googled something about dropping out of grad school and stumbled upon this blog. Maybe I just changed his mind. Or maybe I'll have another glass of wine and go to bed.

As for the professional world: feeling pretty good about the grad school decision. I pretty much woke up one day and...felt...fine. I seem to be dealing with the normal sequence of events following a bowing out of academia. Step 1: freak the fuck out. Step 2: contemplate ways to reenter the protective cocoon of grad school. Step 3: question entire identity. Step 4: send feelers out into the non-academic world to see if it really does exist. Step 5: decide to teach English abroad if nothing else works out. Step 6: freak the fuck out again. How long until opening day starts? Nothing assuages existential crises like the nasaly sweetness of Vin Scully. Time for Dodger baseball indeed.

This May Be...No Really This Time it Probably is...

Is it possible that this next decade will usher in the end of western capitalism? The more I think about it, the more this seems to be a real possibility. Here is what I mean. If the republican controlled House enacts its own chosen legislative agenda, or even if it succeeds in blocking and obfuscating everything the democrats try to do, the middle and working classes of this country will be absolutely crushed. Social services ruined, tax policy favoring the rich even more, etc. etc. etc. This will result in only a couple of possibilities. One, a massive revolt by the lower classes. We've seen this kind of thing before, but it has been awhile since it has been anything other than cultural. The 60s provided a kind of blueprint for a nation-wide movement, but it was vague, unfocused, and mostly concerned with moral and cultural evolution. We need to look back to the massive worker-centered protests of the late 19th century that were fueled by labor unrest related to periodic economic swan-dives that rocked the nation in 1873 and 1893. Think Haymarket square riots, Pullman riots. I'm talking bloody, fiery, angry mobs that were sick of being exploited by the power class. It could and probably should happen again. The second possibility is one that I certainly favor, and which seemed likely to happen anyway until last week's election debacle. A further shift to a Scandinavian-style political and economic environment. This has been the lefts' dream of course for decades now and in some important ways, Obama almost heralded the dawn of this promised age. His watered down health care legislation and his equally diluted plan to create jobs via government investment in green industry pointed the way down this pragmatically utopian path. But this path was blocked last week by a resurgence of idiotic republican voters; a blockage that seems to be only temporary. The republicans have no plan, other than continuing to swindle, hoodwink, and bamboozle ordinary Americans into voting for politicians who will continue to legislate in favor of Wall Street and big business by sidling up to conservative America's fear of abortion, gun control, and, well everything really. This lack of a plan has to backfire, right? I think so. I hope so. I imagine that even conservative America will begin to realize that they have been dependent on government's teat for decades, and that the "free market" really just means the rich preying upon the not rich. Which, hopefully, theoretically, will result in a leftward movement among the American electorate. This could all happen within a decade. And, whether or not this movement is a violent, furious shift, or a ballot-box renunciation of the republican death-machine, there is a good, good chance that American capitalism will have a decidedly socialist flavor as a result.


Still applying for publishing/editing jobs, with no bites yet. Second private school observation coming up next week. The slog continues...

Also: the following link is a great summary of why I decided not to attend grad school next year. Watch and learn.

http://www.leavingacademia.com/2010/10/i-want-to-be-a-college-professor/

Things Will Not Get Better (regardless of what Obama or Dan Savage says)

Thomas Jefferson, possibly the most revered "founding father" was as affluent and elite as they come. Jefferson was fluent in three languages, had an insatiable thirst for French wine, built a fabulous and fabulously expensive estate, and was as comfortable in a Parisian court as he was in Virginia. Jefferson would have, in fact, preferred that the newly emergent American political and social system he helped create hewed more closely to the French model. Much of the same could be said for Ben Franklin, right down to his francophilic tendencies. Alexander Hamilton was terrified that members of the lower class would have any say whatsoever in the government, and he favored a radically aggressive governmental handling of the economy--this from the United States' first Secretary of the Treasury.

These men would be truly saddened to see how their political experiment has borne itself out, but not in the ways that republicans and conservatives assume. Elitists to the bone, the founders of this nation greatly feared that they risked ceding too much control of the government to the uneducated and the incapable. They knew that the masses were quite easily swayed, that passions inflamed were passions uncontrolled, and that in a democracy passions could be just as devastating as foreign armies. The very notion of the representation that is at the heart of our political system reflects this concern. The "people" are in no way smart enough or knowledgeable enough to run a government: hence the need for representation. It was once assumed that citizens of the highest intellectual talent and possessing the greatest education were naturally superior officeholders. It is truly, truly shocking that this faith in intelligence has actually receded.

The sad truth that republicans now have enough obstructionist power to idiotically wrestle the economy into the next Great Depression is probably less important than the powerful truth that should be evident to progressives nationwide: The United States is doomed. This election was not about anger, it was about fear. Conservatives, by their very nature, are a fearful lot, and they lack both the vision and, quite ironically, the hindsight to recognize their folly. Their desire to return America to a WASPY 1950s heyday will ruin us. Americans, read your British history. There we will find the blueprints for an empire in decay, and, unfortunately, our future.

On a lighter note: I've received some very positive responses to my C.V. from private high schools in the area, and have scheduled several observation days and meetings with faculty. And, mark your calendars, I will deliver my third guest lecture at Berkeley City College on November 15th. The theme will be U.S. economic history in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Also: After a recent viewing of "First Contact" I have declared, definitively, that not only is Jean-Luc Picard officially superior to Kirk, but that Patrick Stewart is the greatest...actor...ever.

Life is (is not?) a movie

I always feel this way deep down inside, but occasionally it occurs to me in a more straight-forward way that I view my life as if it were a movie. So I do what my character would, think like I assume he would think, and feel as though I'm supposed to act in this role. Then when I diverge from this role, anxiety comes crashing in. This, I suppose, was what Sartre was trying to tell us, and also Heidegger before him for that matter. We are all just playing roles, filling time, avoiding or filling the void. Knowing this provides little comfort. We still have to live here after all. Anyway, the movie thing. It is difficult to know what I should be doing in my current situation. Grad school (do I go next year at the end of my deferral? do I move on without it?) seems like this foe to be vanquished, a mountain to be climbed, a metaphor involving overcoming overwhelming odds. In the movies, my character is supposed to throw himself into the challenge, and we, as the audience, want him to because we have, at most, 2 hours invested in the struggle. Even if it is a failure, it is over soon and we can get up and leave the theater. But in real life, that failure carries enormous weight. So do the successes, though they, unlike in the movie, are not finite. Life unfolds further, presenting more and more of these kinds of choices, and before we are dead and gone, we will have faced so many of them that they blur together and become the history of our lives. What's my point? I think it is this: a friend of mine was listening to me struggle with my decision about going on to my PhD program and she told me that I sounded like I was living in a movie. "You are not in a movie," she said. "You don't have to slay the dragons or conquer the enemy or whatever. Do what feels right, not what you think you should do just because it is the hard thing." More or less. It seems to me that if one did not feel like they were in some kind of biopic about themselves, they would be far less likely to "act" as if they were being watched.

Yesterday I began to apply for jobs and internships. So far, I have applied to the SEIU as a researcher, and as an intern of some kind at an east bay company that works as teachers for supernaturally intelligent kids, the Doogie Howsers of the world. It is apparently a form of special education, which is interesting, because it just shows that our industrialized school system has few ways of dealing with kids on either side of the median intelligence line. I have also arranged for classroom observation at a local private high school, will be observing a humanities seminar. Think about that: a humanities seminar for high school kids.

I learned while tailoring my C.V. to each position, and while writing cover letters to each place that, by god, grad school has taught me some incredibly useful skills. I mean, after reading my cover letters alone, I would hire me. Writing, researching, editing, data organization, communication, teaching--all of this seems practical. To the point that I question those who finish M.A.s and Ph.Ds and then complain that they have learned nothing useful.

Finally, a little cultural side note. Margaret and I saw Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stanger at the Kabuki Tuesday night. How that man can do so much with basically the same story over and over and over again is astounding. Married man meets younger woman. Married woman meets interesting man. Monogamy is questioned, attacked. Affairs help nothing. We are all still crazy. I love that man.

So much to say so much to say so much to say

There's a little Dave Matthews Band there for you. I'm blogging again after spending a few years away from the sport. I just re-read almost all of my old posts from "What Have I Done?" and I came to two conclusions: that was a great fucking blog; and I was a terribly clunky writer. I think reading Dave Eggers everyday may have had something to do with the latter, a condition that has been effectively treated by the rigors of earning a graduate degree in history. Which, of course, is the ostensible theme of this blog--on a meta level at least. Life without grad school. When I wrote the first post, I assumed that that was a permanent condition. But, mercifully, I was awarded an un-asked-for deferral for (hopefully) a year. This should allow me time to live as a non-student, address some powerful neuroses that have, for lack of a better term, "wrecked shop" in the most important parts of the decision-making control centers of my brain, and at least afford me some kind of opportunity to see what...else...is...out...there. That sentence was so frightening to type that I had to drag it out--evidence that there is much work to be done. And by work I mean very expensive therapy sessions which will hopefully show me that life exists outside the twin confines of grad school and bartending. Though I assume there are an infinite array of other possibilities in between these two poles, having yet to grab hold of them weakens the mind's willingness to admit of their existence. That is the project this blogs attempts to chronicle.


In short, I hope to regularly (ha!) comment on San Francisco, and politics, and sports, and food, and bartending.

Please join me won't you?

The Beginning of the Rest of It All

This has truly been the summer of my discontent. After many months of soul wrenching internal and external debate, I have decided to (barring a deferral) suspend my graduate school career. No decision has ever been more difficult. Some of my hand was forced by severe mental instability. But that instability came as a result of trying to justify another half decade or more of grinding poverty, accumulating student loan debt, and a continually nonexistent job market. Why, I wonder, when professors of mine explained to me the extreme peril of pursuing a PhD in history did I not heed their advice when it was at its most useful? As it is, I just spent 3 years earning a MA degree that I am proud of indeed, but those years could have been much better served earning a graduate degree in a field with job prospects. This will be old hat to those who have considered grad school in the humanities, or have been around the block with someone who has. At the end of the day, it just seemed that, at 32 years old, there is simply no more time to waste. I could no longer bear the prospect of being in my late 30s and looking for my first job. Whether in academia or not. I am banking on one thing: those who are smart enough to get into a PhD program ought to be smart enough to find something else to do with their lives. In my case, I'm going to try to carve out a job in education at some level. Though this freedom that comes from leaving grad school is easily the most terrifying position I have ever been in.